With the war in Iraq uppermost in our minds today, we are grateful to family members of those serving in the military who took the time to write the Bangor Daily News expressing thanks to our Bangor International Airport Troop Greeters who continue to be there for those brave men and women.

David Davenport of Eureka Springs, Ark., wrote that his son passed through Bangor en route to Iraq, and his first message home “told of the kindness of a small group of your city’s citizens to those serving.”

Davenport’s son wrote the otherwise uneventful trip was “made special” by our Troop Greeters who “shook each soldier’s hand and thanked us for our service.”

While “most were older vets and their spouses,” the son wrote, “some were my age and younger.

“This group took great pride in their city being the last stop on the way out and the first on the way back home. They were great.”

Davenport’s son asked his family to “do something nice for the people of Bangor, if you ever get the chance.”

Thus, Davenport wrote his letter “so that some kind people will know that what they are doing matters.”

Linda Speetzen of Horseshoe Bay, Texas, wrote that her son’s plane stopped here on its way home from Qatar.

“The boys were greeted by a group of ladies and gentlemen who welcomed them back to the USA,” Speetzen wrote.

“My son is not moved by many things; kind of a tough guy, you might say. But this was something.

“When he was telling me about it, he was so proud and moved, I was shocked.

“I want the people of Bangor who did this for Greg to know how special they are.

“Thank you so much.”

For retired U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Bob Bannister, now a government contractor, passing through Bangor at 3 a.m. one October day from Fort Bliss, Texas, headed for Iraq, was not only an uplifting experience, but was also memorable for another reason.

His previous stops here were in 1983 en route to and from “Reforger 83” in Germany.

On his return trip, he wrote, the pilot came over the intercom “just before we landed” in Bangor to tell the troops “the Marine barracks had been bombed in Beirut, Lebanon, a day that no one on that plane will ever forget.

“So it was rather eerie to be in Bangor, 21 years later, almost to the day.”

However, Bannister found this stop “much more pleasant and rewarding,” and he described the hellos and handshakes as “very touching.”

He extends “heartfelt thanks” to those who kept them company while at the airport “and wished us all well as we left.

“You brought a lot of smiles to faces as we departed.

“I hope to see you all there again in a year when I pass back through.”

Capt. Jay Padgett is a chaplain who served in Iraq with an Army National Guard unit from Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

After 45 days in Kuwait and 10 months in Iraq, he wrote that his unit was “happy to get out of Baghdad;” that they “breathed a sign of relief” when they crossed into Kuwait; “cheered when our plane lifted” off a Kuwaiti runway; “cheered again when the plane left Iraqi airspace,” but that the unit “whooped and hollered when we entered American airspace and the pilot said, welcome home.”

They were “giddy with excitement” just getting off the plane, and very surprised to find yellow ribbons and signs welcoming them home, along with an “unexpected reception line” of local veterans, who had “waited to greet us, shake our hand, and tell us they were proud of us,” he wrote.

Thanks to phones provided by Unicel that the Troop Greeters pass out, Padgett made his “first call home on American soil” and, quite possibly, enjoyed the Sam’s Club cookies the greeters always have available as well.

Padgett hopes to see more than the inside of BIA next time he’s in Bangor but, he wrote, if he never gets to visit again, he wants our Troop Greeters to know you made “a long-lasting, first impression,” for which he says, “Thank you.”

Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone in harm’s way this Christmas Eve, but most especially families who just learned they lost a loved one in the recent insurgent attack in Iraq.

Joni Averill, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor 04402; 990-8288.