Posted on 04/11/2004 7:54:30 PM PDT by Cedar
Family watches, prays for Macon man held hostage in Iraq By Steve Rogers and Valerie Matchette
MACON - Tommy Hamill went to Iraq to try to pull his family out of debt after struggling to survive in the dairy business.
Now his family and friends in Macon can only watch and pray.
"I don't really know anything, we don't know anything. ... Prayers are all we need right now," Hamill's wife, Kellie, told The Dispatch in a telephone interview Saturday afternoon from the couple's home in Macon.
"I'm doing about as good as can be expected under the circumstances," she added, as a television news broadcast with coverage from Iraq played in the background.
"I got God, and I just trust in God," Vera Hamill, Tommy Hamill's grandmother, said.
A handful of cars were in the driveway of the couple's brick ranch house Saturday. A few family and friends were doing "all they could" to provide comfort, a neighbor said.
Tommy Hamill was taken hostage Friday in the war-torn country by gunmen who rocketed a fuel convoy on the road between Baghdad and Fallujah. Saturday, the abductors threatened to kill and mutilate him. (See related story on this page.)
In a videotape given to the Al-Jazeera television network, Hamill was shown in front of an Iraqi flag. A spokesman off camera demanded that U.S. troops end their siege of the city of Fallujah, where four American civilians were killed and mutilated last week.
Hamill identified himself to a reporter for Australian television seconds before being whisked away in a car by gunmen.
The Macon community is rallying around the family.
"I hated to hear it. We were just real shocked. We've said we're going to do everything we can to support his family," said Macon Mayor Dorothy Baker Hines, who plans to have the city put up flags and ribbons around town.
"We just hope and pray that he's going to be released and get to come home," added Hines, who knows Kellie Hamill from her work as an E-911 dispatcher, a job from which she is on leave while recovering from heart surgery.
"She's really the backbone of 911. We're going to do anything we can to help her and support her," Hines said of Kellie Hamill, who is at home with the couple's son and daughter.
Macon Assistant Police Chief Petey Freshour grew up with Tommy Hamill, who is a few years his senior.
"We came from the same community," Freshour said.
When Hamill decided to go to Iraq, Freshour understood that he was doing what he had to do to provide for his family.
"That's what he thought he needed to do," Freshour said.
He was "surprised and shocked" to learn that Hamill had been captured.
"It hits close to home when you really know somebody like that, you know," Freshour said.
Jim Robbins, another family friend, agreed the news had hit hard in the "small, close-knit community" of Macon.
"It's pretty much a shock when it's this close to home," Robbins said.
A full-time firefighter with the Columbus Fire Department, Robbins got to know Hamill because the two volunteered with the Macon volunteer fire department.
"We just hope and pray for his safe return," Robbins said.
Hamill went to Iraq last September after taking a job as a fuel tanker driver with Kellogg, Brown and Root, a subsidiary of the Halliburton, the company which has a $4.5 billion contract to provide supplies for U.S. troops and to help rebuild Iraq.
Hamill is among about 25,000 employees the company has in Iraq and Kuwait, many of whom, like Hamill, were attracted to the jobs by high pay.
In the video from Australian television, Hamill is wearing what appeared to be a light flak jacket like those worn by private security guards, who are often contracted to protect convoys.
Hamill, who also drove a milk truck, sold his dairy farm last summer after fighting a losing battle to survive in the industry. But the sale still left the family in debt, Kellie Hamill told The Beacon newspaper in Macon in a story published April 8. "With this job, he saw a way to help get us back on track," she said.
Tommy Hamill had signed on for a one-year hitch in Iraq with Halliburton but was considering extending it on a month-to month basis after that, his wife said.
And they both were aware of the dangers, especially since at least 12 employees of the Houston-Texas-based firm and its subcontractors have been killed and another 40 wounded in Iraq. The worst came March 31 when four workers were killed, burned to death, mutilated and hanged from the Euphrates River bridge in Fallujah, acts that sparked outrage worldwide but also signaled an escalation in fighting in Iraq.
"He's seen how bad it can be," Kellie Hamill said in The Beacon article. "An artillery round has landed within feet of him and he's constantly getting bricks thrown through his truck windows."
Convoy drivers in Iraq have armed escorts and have been given a variety of safety tips to try to avoid ambushes, including running any vehicle that comes along side of them off the road. But those measures apparently weren't enough when Hamill's convoy was attacked by gunmen Friday in Abu Ghreib on the main highway outside Baghdad. A U.S. soldier and an Iraqi driver were killed in the assault.
Saturday, Haliburton officials referred all inquiries to a company statement on its Web site.
"Halliburton's primary concern is for the safety and security of all personnel, especially those working in such challenging environments and conditions," the statement said.
"We are monitoring the current situation in Iraq and continue to work closely with coalition authorities regarding the safety and security of all our personnel in the region, but it would be inappropriate for us to comment further at this time," the company concluded.
Later Saturday, Kellie Hamill said she had been contacted by Halliburton officials and asked not to make additional comment or release any photos of her husband.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Just a note to remind folks about something. Remember when the libs were screaming last year about Halliburton 'overcharging' the Army for delivery of food and water to our military? This is WHY it costs so much. Halliburton and it's subsidiaries have to pay these people WELL for them to even consider going over there to do the job. The libs call it 'overcharging'; I call it 'combat pay'!
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