Linda Bass wants people to know her brother's name: Army Sgt. First Class Rich Henkes, killed on patrol in Iraq last September.
He had little connection to Alabama beyond his sister, herself an Army reservist captain on active duty, who settled here in 2003 because, she says, the economy was good and the landscape picturesque.
But Henkes, adoring father of a 6-year-old girl, leaves a legacy that will help Alabama children for decades to come. Knowing how her brother loved his daughter and took every opportunity to help children in Iraq, Bass made a lifetime pledge of $150 per month in Henkes' memory to Kid One Transport. The Birmingham-based nonprofit provides free rides to doctors appointments for children and expectant mothers in 32 Alabama counties.
Bass has also assembled a team of nearly 60 people - made up largely of Henkes' platoon members in Iraq - to run in Saturday's 5K race benefiting Kid One Transport. The race, which starts and ends at Boutwell Auditorium downtown, is part of a weekend of activities surrounding Sunday's annual Mercedes Marathon. Thanks to 5K sponsor BE&K, which paid for tents and other race necessities, proceeds from the $25 per person signup fee and runner sponsorships on Saturday go directly to Kid One.
"We decided to dedicate the 5K run to Richard Henkes," Kid One spokesman Josh Vasa says. "At the end of the race, we'll have a moment of silence in his memory."
Every T-shirt issued for the 5-K race will display the number 566 on the left sleeve. That's the number Henkes wore in the race last year while in Birmingham to visit his sister. Both had run cross country in track in high school.
"That was the first and last time we ever got to run together," says Bass, 39, who works as secretary for the general staff at the 87th training support division in Birmingham.
Henkes' entire platoon is registered to run the race in Iraq. Funds raised there will also go to Kid One.
The last time Bass saw her brother was at a family Father's Day gathering last summer. He had picked out a bunch of gag gifts to present to his chagrined father in front of even his most distant relatives.
"Rich liked practical jokes," Bass says. "He was also very athletic and very humble. But he liked to laugh and have fun."
Henkes was stationed in Fort Lewis, Wash., when the Army sent him to Iraq in July. Henkes was a platoon sergeant and a Stryker vehicle commander. Every day, infantrymen piled into the armored vehicle, which Henkes drove into outlying and oftentimes dangerous areas. There, he and his men would leave the vehicle and patrol on foot.
Awaiting details
Last Sept. 3, the day he died, his platoon was hit by an IED (basically, a booby trap) in Mosul, and some of the soldiers required treatment back at base. Battalion headquarters then sent them back to the site to take pictures. Henkes, whose head and shoulders were just visible outside the Stryker's commander's hatch, was struck in the eye in another IED attack, and the shrapnel penetrated his brain.
He didn't die immediately, though the family has yet to learn details of his injuries and treatment. Henkes' parents, both Air Force retirees from Oregon, still have many questions.
But Bass learned a lot about her brother during his memorial service in Iraq, before he was sent home for burial in Oregon. The day before he died, Henkes and his medic helped an injured Iraqi boy get to a hospital, as Henkes reassured the boys' parents he would be OK. "All my brother could talk about that day was how great it felt to be able to help that family," Bass says.
That's what led her back to Kid One Transport, an organization that has proven itself critical to the well-being of indigent children. In the decade since its founding, Kid One vehicles have driven children 2.5 million miles on 110,000 trips to doctors' offices. Johnson and Johnson recognized Kid One as "One of America's Most Innovative Healthcare Programs" in 2004.
Miracle's Stryker Team, as Bass has dubbed her 5K team, is still accepting team members and donations at www.active.com/donate/kidonerun/labass67. Bass is working, also, to establish a nonprofit foundation in her brother's memory that can give grants to pay for families of dead soldiers to fly to Iraq for memorial services. "The Army only covers the parents and guardians, and that poses a financial problem for brothers and sisters, or grandparents, who have to pay their own way." (The foundation's Web site is www.werich.org).
"Part of my healing process is making sure people know who my brother was," Bass says. "He may not have been from Alabama, but he supported Kid One. He had a big part. I guess more than that, I want to jog people's memories that there are thousands of soldiers over there, and they're not just names. They are people with stories who are helping kids, and you don't hear a lot of their stories on the news. I think it's important people know."
E-mail: kkemp@bhamnews.com