News Article

By: BILL JONES/Staff Writer
Source: The Greeneville Sun
05-26-2005

A Greene County National Guardsman, who was seriously injured in a March 20 roadside bomb attack in Iraq, received a hero’s welcome when he returned to his Greene County home on Wednesday from a Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Florida.

Spc. Anthony K. "Tony" Lambert, 44, survived an attack that killed Sgt. Paul W. Thomason III, a Troop G guardsman from Jefferson City.

Lambert had been greeted on Wednesday morning at Knoxville’s McGhee Tyson Airport by more than two dozen well-wishers. He was welcomed by about two dozen other supporters when he arrived at his family’s Old Knoxville Highway residence here shortly after noon Wednesday.

Well before others arrived, Glenna Howington, a member of the Family Support Group of the Tennessee Army National Guard’s 190th Engineer Company, was busily setting up tables and arranging food for the welcome-home party that was to follow.

Lambert, who was wearing a freshly-pressed desert camouflage uniform, was seated in the front passenger seat of a gold minivan that led a three-vehicle convoy into the driveway of his family’s rented residence near the intersection of the Old Knoxville Highway and Hal Henard Road.

As the convoy approached, with horns sounding, well-wishers, who were standing in the yard, shouted, applauded and waved signs that bore messages of welcome. The convoy had been escorted from Hamblen County to the Lambert residence by Greene County sheriff’s deputies: Sgt. Glenna Estepp and Deputy Sheriff Mike Shipley, who also stopped by the residence briefly.

Shortly after the minivan that carried Lambert, his wife, Renita, and a National Guardsman came to a stop in the driveway beside the white farmhouse, the National Guardsman retrieved a wheelchair from the van’s cargo area and positioned it so that Lambert could slide into it from the van’s front passenger seat.

Lambert, whose feet were clad in plastic protective boots because of ankle injuries he suffered in the March 20 attack, greeted well-wishers and told them he was glad to be home.

Greene County Mayor Roger Jones was on hand to greet Lambert. He told the returning soldier, "I’m Roger Jones, the county mayor, and we welcome you home. It’s an honor to be here.

"On behalf of everyone in Greene County, I would like to thank God and say that we’ve been praying for you."

Jones told Lambert that the citizens of Greene County were proud of him.

"We’re glad to have you back safely," Jones said. "Just like the sign says, you are our hero."

Lambert replied that he had done no more than had other National Guardsmen serving in Iraq.

"But you were there doing your part," Jones said. "That’s what it takes."

'You Are A Hero In My Book'

Also present to greet Spc. Lambert was Capt. Neal Kerney, rear-area officer in charge at the 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment’s 2nd Squadron headquarters in Kingsport.

"On behalf of Col. (Dennis) Adams and the whole regiment, we just want to thank you," Capt. Kerney said. "We’re glad you’re home with your family. It’s an honor for me to meet you. You are a hero in my book and always will be."

During a subsequent interview, Capt. Kerney said, "He’s been there on the front lines for all of us. Thank God he survived it and was able to come home and rejoin his family.

"I’m just glad to see all this tremendous support he has. It just shows so much how the Tennessee Army National Guard is one big family. I’m glad I’m able to be part of it."

Carolyn Knight, chairperson of the Family Readiness Group of the Army National Guard’s Morristown-based 190th Engineer Company to which Spc. Lambert was assigned, said after the arrival that it was important to Lambert that he be able to return home wearing his military uniform.

Knight, a Morristown resident, said she had traveled earlier to the Knoxville airport to greet Tony and Renita Lambert when their flight from Tampa, Fla., arrived.

She said Mrs. Lambert has been at her husband’s side since he was flown to the U.S. Army’s Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C., on March 22.

Knight said Lambert had most recently been treated at the James Haley Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Tampa. She said he was released from the hospital about a week ahead of schedule.

'He’s Doing Better’

During a brief interview, Renita Lambert said her husband recently had begun to walk, despite ankle injuries that require him to wear protective plastic boots.

“He’s got a bad shoulder and several fractures of his back,” she said, adding that her husband also had suffered some brain damage from the bomb attack.

"He’s doing better," she said. "I can tell a difference in him every day." Mrs. Lambert said her husband will receive further treatment at the James H. Quillen Veterans Affairs Medical Center at Mountain Home in Johnson City.

She also praised the support she had received from the 190th Engineers’ Family Readiness Group, members of other area National Guard units, and the community.

"Anything I needed or needed to know, all I had to do was call the folks with the Family Readiness Group," she said. "They are great. Then all the (National Guard) units jumped in — Greeneville, Kingsport, Bristol, all of them."

Brenda Walker, another Family Readiness Group member from Morristown, said Jimmy Feezell, the Family Readiness Group coordinator at the Greeneville National Guard Armory, had fed the Lamberts’ pet dog, Princess, and five cats while Mrs. Lambert and her daughter, Whitney Judd, were away helping care for Spc. Lambert.

'Just Glad To Be Back'

In an interview, Tony Lambert said he had no memory of the attack that seriously injured him and killed Sgt. Thomason.

"I’m just glad to be back," Lambert said when asked about his feelings concerning returning home. "I wish all my other buddies and brothers would come back home. They will one day."

He said he had been in Iraq for about five months when the roadside bomb attack that seriously wounded him took place.

"I did all kinds of different things over there," he said when asked what his duties had been in Iraq.

When asked what he was driving at the time of the March 20 attack, Lambert said he could not recall and also could not recall whether he was driving or acting as a gunner at the time of the attack.

Lambert said his family moved to Greene County from Polk County, Fla., several years ago when he took a job with an electrical contracting firm that was helping to build the Wal-Mart Distribution Center in Midway.

"When I saw Greeneville, I stayed," he said.

An electrician by trade, Lambert said he had been self-employed when he was called to active military duty. Previously, he said, he had worked for Hartman Electric here.

Lambert said that he and his family rent their home from Wayne and Beverly Hartman.

On Wednesday, Mrs. Hartman was busy arranging and serving sandwiches and other food to visitors to the Lambert residence.

Spc. Lambert said he has been a member of the National Guard's 190th Engineer Company for three and a half years.

He said that he also served as an infantryman in the U.S. Army from 1979 through 1981.

Sun Photos by Phil Gentry - In the top photo, National Guardsmen, family members and friends greet Spc. Anthony K. “Tony” Lambert, seated in the wheelchair, outside his Old Knoxville Highway residence on his return to Greeneville. Lambert was seriously wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq on March 20 and had been in military hospitals since that time. In the lower photo, Army National Guard Capt. Neal Kerney, of Kingsport, hugs Lambert as Staff Sgt. Alvin Jackson, of Greeneville, watches.

Story Copyright to Greene County Online