By: Suzanne Lawler, Communications Manager

This summer, over 7,000 miles away from her home in Georgia, Althea Wooden, undertook critical and emotional work at a U.S.  military installation in Kuwait.

“We deliver emergency communications messages to the service members or their command to give to the service members,” explained the American Red Cross of Georgia Expeditionary Mobile Staffer.

It’s part of the Red Cross Hero Care Network which helps military families connect with loved ones for emergency communications on life-changing events, such as a new birth, an illness or a death in the family. While the Red Cross doesn’t authorize leave, it helps verify the event so military commanders can make an informed decision.

Often, the Red Cross helps facilitate the return of service members to care for their loved ones.

“Death affects people differently, illnesses affect people differently, and you see all of that and you have to be that person to get them through it,” Wooden said somberly.

As you can imagine, this work takes an emotional toll and deploying to a military base for six months comes with consequences.

Wooden was frank when it came to her struggles. “The first couple of months were very hard. It was a big adjustment. I couldn’t find my footing, getting acclimated to the environment, missing my family. I just didn’t know what each day was going to hold. This room saved this deployment for me,” she said with tears in her eyes.

The room she speaks fondly of is the Travis M. Jordan Healing Arts Gallery in the Camp Arifjan American Red Cross Center.

2^nd Lt. Travis Jordan served in the Public Affairs Department at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. He loved music and the arts and actively volunteered with the Red Cross as a child and an adult. In May 2016, he died by suicide. The room at the center was dedicated in his memory in 2017.

Camp Arifjan is a hub. Every year, tens of thousands of service members pass through it on their way to and from theaters of operation in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

Dr. Michael Jordan, the Red Cross vice president for Service to the Armed Forces and International Services, is Travis Jordan’s dad and a gold star father. The Marine served in Operation Desert Storm and Iraq after 9/11. In 2005, after a major combat operation, the senior Jordan and his Marines sought respite at the Red Cross Camp Arifjan.

“Following Travis’s tragic death in 2016 due to his mental health challenges, the Red Cross wanted to provide more awareness to mental health issues and to provide even greater support at Camp Arifjan,” said Dr. Jordan. The Red Cross asked him and his wife, Lynn, if they could raise money to open a healing arts center and mental health respite space in memory of their son’s life and service.

When Wooden arrived in Kuwait, she knew she had another mission to take on, along with her communication duties. “As I walked into the room, it just kind of felt cold and lonely, and I noticed the sign that said healing. Nothing in the room spoke healing to me. If it’s a room dedicated to one of our soldiers, a fallen soldier at that, I felt it should have been more of a memorial, more of a place of resiliency,” she said.

She set Jordan’s photo plaque on her desk to “get a feel for him.”

“I watched him day in and day out and slowly things started coming to me on how I wanted the room to evolve,” she said.

Wooden reached out to Red Cross colleagues and volunteers back home in Georgia. Donations and care packages began arriving.

“I would cry every day because I would open them up and I was like ‘Oh my God, he’s working, he’s doing this,’” she exclaimed.

Today, the room looks transformed. It is bathed in soft lights and the paint on the walls is a nod to Jordan’s service to his country. “The light blue represents the shirt, the navy blue represents his jacket, and all of the gold accents represent his second lieutenant bars,” Wooden described.

Wooden enjoys painting, so she used her skills to touch up a suicide awareness ribbon on the wall. Then she set her sights on something more personal, a life-size portrait of Travis in his camouflage gear.  “I decided to draw a replica of Travis walking away from us, symbolizing him no longer being here,” she said.

Pictures of a vibrant airman and his family also hang on the walls, his uniform sits in a display case with gallery lighting. A library has shelves of books about healing and mental health.

“Some of the books have gone missing and I can only assume they needed the book for whatever reason,” Wooden noted.

For Wooden, the project offered a lifeline in some dark times of her own. “If it doesn’t help anyone else, it certainly helps me because I, too, suffer from depression and so this was my own little bit of respite,” she said.

Earlier this year, Wooden shared the renewed space over FaceTime with Jordan’s parents. “As I was walking around (the room) they both just started crying and we were all just a big ball of tears, we were a mess but it was just the most amazing moment and I knew my purpose had been served,” Wooden said with tears in her eyes.

Dr. Jordan recalled that emotional day too. He says he and his wife were completely surprised. “Althea and her teammates have honored our son’s memory and legacy as an airman and loving son and brother, and it is hard to put into words just how meaningful that is to our family,” he said. “Travis would be proud to know that this center named in his honor would become so inviting as a respite for other military members, as a place for healing.”

Wooden, the oldest person on the team, says she’s a “mama bear,” helping young adults, some of them under 20. “I’m very protective of them,” she admitted.

Jordan’s legacy lives on, so much so that his compassionate spirit gave Wooden the strength to help other service members and their families. It’s a project of love, memory and service brought together by people who never met but will always have a special connection.
 

About the Hero Care Network:

The Red Cross Hero Care Network is a free 24/7 support system for military and veteran families when they are facing life-changing events like the birth of a child, the death of a loved one, a medical emergency or even a financial crisis. The Red Cross is the only organization to provide this emergency messaging service to separated and active-duty military families. Visit www.redcross.org/saf for full information about programs that support military communities.
 

Overseas Military Community Support

For over 140 years, the American Red Cross has provided comfort and support to service members during every major forward troop movement and mobilization. From providing nursing services for wounded soldiers during the Spanish-American War to transmitting emergency communications and boosting the wellness and preparedness of service members stationed in the Middle East or Eastern Europe today, the Red Cross is there to ensure the humanitarian needs of the nation’s military members are met, wherever they are.

All active-duty service members, veterans, Department of Defense contractors, civilian personnel (on Status of Armed Forces Agreement) and their families are eligible to free Red Cross services on their military installations and bases overseas.
 

About the American Red Cross: 
About the American Red Cross: The American Red Cross shelters, feeds and provides comfort to victims of disasters; supplies about 40% of the nation’s blood; teaches skills that save lives; distributes international humanitarian aid; and supports veterans, military members and their families. The Red Cross is a nonprofit organization that depends on volunteers and the generosity of the American public to deliver its mission. For more information, please visit redcross.org or CruzRojaAmericana.org, or follow us on social media.