President Bush brings special gift to Marion Harrison
- Nov 7, 2008 - comment
PINEVILLE, La. – To emphasize the value he places on volunteerism, President George W. Bush likes to honor an outstanding volunteer at every locale he visits in the United States.
Since 2002, he has met with and given a President’s Volunteer Service Award pin to more than 650 Americans. Marion Harrison, a member at First Baptist Montgomery, received one on Monday, Oct. 20, when President Bush visited Alexandria to talk with community and business leaders about the economy.
The two met on the tarmac of Alexandria International Airport, in the shadow of Air Force One, and far from anyone except the official White House photographer and two Secret Service agents assigned to protect Harrison. The president reached out to Harrison; both said it was an honor to be with the other. They hugged.
“He said, ‘I want to congratulate you and the hours you’ve spent helping the veterans,’” Harrison said during a Friday afternoon interview at the Alexandria VA Medical Center, where she volunteers 30 hours a week.
“I have something for you,” she said President Bush said. He handed Harrison a small box with a gold Volunteer Service Award pin in it.
“The President is the only one to give this award, and it’s never mailed,” Harrison said she was told by a White House staffer. “He always presents it himself.”
The President circled Harrison’s shoulder with his arm. He stepped even closer to her, hugged her even more tightly, and the official White House photographer took photos.
Harrison turned her face to the President’s. “My husband would be so proud of me,” she said, tears in her voice.
“You don’t have to tell me about your husband,” President Bush said. “I know about him.”
The President pulled Harrison to himself, kissed her cheek and rested his head on her temple.
Their last contact: his right hand enveloped in both of hers. Time the President of the United States spent with the First Montgomery member: two memorable minutes.
“I can still feel his kiss on my cheek,” Harrison said on Friday.
Harrison has volunteered for 18 years, and amassed more than 15,000 volunteer hours, at the VA Medical Center, before spending what she considers “precious moments” with the President, and receiving a President’s Volunteer Service Award. She says she has no plans to slow down from her three-days-a-week of 10-hour days with the men she calls “my sweethearts.”
Harrison first went to the VA Medical Center in the late 1980s, to care for her husband Thomas, who had been a crew chief on a fighter plane, and part of the D-Day invasion at Normandy, France.
“When my husband was living there, I helped with the patients on that whole floor,” Harrison said. “I became friends with them, and if I’d go to get him something to eat – like ice cream – I’d bring it for everyone else too.”
Before her husband died in 2000, Harrison said, he told her to continue volunteering with the 15 or 16 men he’d be leaving her to.
“He said, ‘You love these guys, and they love you, and I want you to continue,’” Harrison said. “He died not long after that.” Her eyes filled with unspent tears.
“I appreciate these men, and I tell them that,” she continued, her voice strengthening as she thought of what she has received from the veterans. “It’s a blessing for me, and, I think, it’s an honor for me to help these guys, help all of them. I tell them how much I appreciate them being in the Service, and protecting us – protecting America – and for all they’ve done.”
Harrison works three 10-hour days each week in the kinesiology (study of human movement) room of the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Service Center at the Alexandria VA Medical Center, under the direction of Kinesiotherapist Max Magdaleno.
It’s not a large room, perhaps 15 feet square. Men trickle in throughout the day – some for various treatments; some for coffee and conversation.
“There’s a good feeling in here,” Magdaleno said as he looked around at a half-dozen men, one with a wife, who were chatting with each other. “I have a lot of people who like to come in and visit, and I think this lady [Harrison] has a lot to do with it.
“When I know she’s here, it makes it a whole lot easier,” the kinesiotherapist continued. “She takes their vitals [such as blood pressure] and gets them coffee, makes them feel comfortable. … You know, when one person takes an interest in someone, sometimes that’s all it takes.”
The men she ministers to say they appreciate her.
“It reinforces my faith in my wife to see her,” said a man not cleared to talk with the press, so his name wasn’t taken. “I know [my wife] will be okay after I’m gone, because she’s just like [Harrison.]”
“She brings out the best in all of us,” said Ray Stell, a 66-year-old Navy veteran, according to a Bill Sumrall article in The Town Talk, a community newspaper. “She’s a sweet lady.”
Harrison helps in the patients’ rehabilitation by walking the halls with them, working with them on parallel bars and other strength-training equipment, pushing their wheelchairs – she even cuts the men’s hair. And she smiles.
“They say every time they see me, no matter where, I’m smiling,” Harrison said. “Some call me ‘Sunshine’ because I’m always smiling and always joking, and of course I don’t know how many say they’re going to marry me.”
Harrison pays for her own gas and drives 80 miles round trip three days a week to volunteer.
“In recognition of her efforts,” according to a White House press release, “Harrison was selected as the 2007 Veterans of Foreign Wars Auxiliary Volunteer of the Year for the state of Louisiana.”
That was how she came to the attention of the White House. Staffer Cindy Wilsbach called the chief of volunteer service at the Alexandria VA Medical Center last Thursday to ask if there were an exemplary volunteer, and was given Harrison’s name. Five or more telephone calls later, Harrison was told she had been selected.
The security checks extended back to her childhood and included her children’s whereabouts. They found out her grandson, a Blackhawk military pilot, left last week for a tour of duty in Iraq. They found out she had served four terms as a member of the Town Council in Montgomery, including mayor pro tem, and a short stint as the town’s mayor before her husband turned seriously ill. And the White House found out about her spiritual life.
“Without Him I wouldn’t be here,” Harrison said to the Message. “He guides my life. Before I make a decision I say, ‘Do you think this is the right thing for me to do?’ … I live by myself; I have to talk to someone! When things go wrong, I say, ‘God’s on vacation’ – and then I laugh.
“Laughter is really expressing your joy,” Harrison continued. “Laughter brings joy, tears and friendship, and I just read an article that said it helps you not have wrinkles!”
This article is reprinted from the October 30, 2008, issue of the Baptist Message, the newsjournal of the Louisiana Baptist Convention.
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