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Woman gathers pajamas for injured troops

OWASSO, Okla. — Julie Dermody doesn’t want troops who suffer an injury in combat to have an added insult in the form of a flimsy hospital gown.

That’s why she started a drive to gather donated pajamas to send to troops who might need them.

Dermody got the idea from her brother, Sgt. Richard Hines, who works with the Oklahoma Army National Guard at Camp Gruber near Muskogee. He finished a 12-month stint in Iraq in November and heard from a National Guard lieutenant about troops recovering in the Baghdad hospital.

“They bring them in there, all messed up,” Hines said. “They cut their uniforms off, and they’ve got nothing to wear other than maybe a hospital gown.”

Dermody, an Oologah resident, started spreading the idea to send the troops pajamas in February through fliers, word of mouth and a blog. Since starting her operation at the Bethel Baptist Church in Owasso, she has helped dispatch more than 100 pairs of T-shirts and sleep pants to Iraq.

Volunteers and children at the church package the pajamas in one-gallon Ziploc bags that also contain handwritten cards of encouragement.

“That’s what everybody wants to know — what they can do,” Dermody said. “It’s a little thing, but it’s a big thing. We want to collect enough so that any injured soldier there is going to be able to walk away with dignity.”

Dermody took in donations for five hours Thursday outside a Wal-Mart in Owasso, with the help of Danny and Jody Eberle. The couple’s grandson, John Bender, is an Army National Guard member who’s training at Fort Sill to be a turret gunner and is scheduled to be deployed to Iraq next month.

“I think this is wonderful,” Danny Eberle said. “It won’t degrade the soldiers like having to wear that smock. They will be covered. They will have a little bit more respect for themselves.”

Dermody said she plans to keep collecting and sending the pajamas to Iraq indefinitely.

“It’s a terrible thought to say that we have soldiers being injured,” Dermody said. “But it’s a fact of life right now and we need to take care of them.”