News Article

By: BILL JONES/Staff Writer
Source: The Greeneville Sun
05-24-2005

A National Guardsman from Greeneville who was seriously wounded in March by a roadside bomb blast in Iraq that killed another National Guardsman is expected to return home Wednesday.

Bonnie Bullington, secretary of the color guard at Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 9683 in Bulls Gap, said this morning that a "welcome home" gathering is planned for Anthony "Tony" Lambert, 44, at his Old Knoxville Highway residence on Wednesday.

Bullington, who described herself as a friend of the Lambert family, said the VFW Post 9683 Color Guard and other veterans groups plan to gather outside the Lambert residence on the Old Knoxville Highway a short distance from its intersection with Hal Henard Road about noon Wednesday.

“His plane is scheduled to arrive in Knoxville about 10:15 a.m. Wednesday, she said, noting that Lambert is recovering from a variety of serious wounds suffered in the March bomb attack that killed Sgt. Paul W. Thomason III.

She said Lambert has been treated at a military hospital in Germany, at the Army’s Walter Reed Medical Center near Washington, D.C., and at a hospital in Florida.

Jerry Edmonds, a civilian employee at the Morristown National Guard Armory where Spc. Lambert served with the 190th Engineer Company, said this morning that Lambert and his wife, Renita, are expected to arrive at McGhee Tyson Airport in Knoxville.

Edmonds said it was possible that Maj. Gen. Gus Hargett, who heads the Tennessee National Guard, would greet Lambert at the airport. The general also might travel to the Lambert residence, Edmonds said.

Wounded March 20

In an March 23 article published by The Greeneville Sun, Graham Leonard, a retired educator who then was embedded with the 2nd Squadron of the 278th Regimental Combat Team, described the Sunday, March 20, attack that killed Sgt. Paul W. Thomason III, of Jefferson City, and wounded four other soldiers.

Leonard’s article identified Spc. Lambert as the driver of a large, armored military truck that was hit by the bomb attack.

Lambert, according to the article, was the most severely wounded of the survivors of the attack. He suffered multiple injuries, according to the report.

Within a few hours of the attack, Lambert was in Germany for surgery, Leonard reported.

Story Copyright to The Greeneville Sun