Abbot's Roll of Honor

These are photos my father sent from a new Roll of Honor that was added to the veteran's memorial in the center of my home town of Abbot Village, Maine. In this first photo, you can see the main road to the right, which is actually Route 15. Between the guard rail you see and the white pickup truck is the Piscataquis River. The store that vehicles are parked in is called Trafton's. The road that passes directly behind the memorial is actually Monument Road - it makes a sharp corner then runs just about parallel to Route 15. That's the road I grew up on. The monument with the statue has been there ever since my family moved to Maine in the early 1980s. The American flag display and the Roll of Honor are new.

Below is a photo of my grandfather, Joseph A. Auger. I'm not sure when this photo was taken. Although my grandfather lives in Massachusetts he visits my dad in Maine several times a year.  

My maiden name is Jennifer Auger. I was deployed to Balad Air Base, Iraq, from January - April 2007. During my time there I traveled to Camp Victory and Sather Air Base. I wear one campaign star on my Iraq Campaign Medal. One of the most exciting stories I wrote at the time was about the battle of An Najaf. The name of my unit was the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing, namesake of the Tuskegee Airmen lineage. It was at this unit where I met Chief Master Sgt. Rudy Lopez for the first time. He was the chief enlisted manager for the medical group. The most media attention we received at Balad, both American and International, was about the theater hospital. In 2007, the hospital was literally a bunch of tents connected together - but the care our wounded military members (and even Iraqis and the occasional terrorist) was second to none. Fast forward three years later and Chief Lopez is now the command chief master sergeant here at Fairchild AFB, Wash., where JG and I are stationed now. The Air Force gets smaller each and every day! 

Here's a photo of the front of the Roll of Honor that begins with honoring veterans from the Civil War.