Flowers, free airline tickets - support for military families

Ms. Bader moved to Fort Carson in March just before her husband was deployed. Though she didn't know many people, it was her neighbor - another military wife - who held her up when she fainted upon hearing of her husband's death. "They have arranged for food and flowers," she says of her military neighbors. "They are here feeding my daughter lunch and changing her diaper."

Some families, however, say they've encountered hiccups in the Army's handling of their wartime tragedies. Dawn Littlefield's husband was also wounded in the Chinook crash. Sgt. Ray Littlefield was on his way to Colorado Springs for emergency leave, to be with her during a difficult pregnancy, when the helicopter was hit.

But after Sergeant Littlefield was released from the hospital in Germany, the Army told Dawn they would fly him to the East Coast but that he would have to buy his own ticket to Colorado Springs. "I was kind of shocked," she says. "He gets shot down in a helicopter and the Army turns around and tells him he has to pay for his own plane ticket home."

Such stories of hardship don't go unnoticed in this town where 30,000 troops are stationed and one in five residents is a veteran. Bob Carlone, a retired Air Force colonel, set up a fund to help out families like the Littlefields. At the war's onset, he cofounded The Homefront Cares, a nonprofit agency to help families of deployed troops fix cars, pay mortgages, or travel to see wounded loved ones. "I was lying in bed one night and I thought, 'I can't fly airplanes anymore. I need to do something,' " says Mr. Carlone.

Ever since, the money has been rolling in from as far away as New York. "I was just talking to a friend of mine yesterday and she said, 'Bob, I'd like to contribute $1,000,' " he says.

The local newspaper donated $28,000 in advertising space to his cause. Dollar Rental Car gave the family of a soldier injured in the Nov. 2 helicopter crash a van for two weeks at no charge. Restaurants donated food.

The El Pomar Foundation, a deep-pocketed philanthropic group here, also established a $100,000 emergency military fund this week to pay for people to travel to see injured family members. "You just can't believe how the community comes together," Carlone says.

On a chilly morning this past Saturday, hundreds lined the streets in Colorado Springs to show their support for the military and its veterans. The parade was a welcome home for Vietnam War veterans who never got one. Among the gray beards and VFW hats was the next generation of soldiers wearing pressed uniforms, black berets, and patches showing they'd returned from the nation's latest war.

A 2-year-old boy tugged on the pant's leg of a soldier waiting in line for coffee with his wife and son. The 2-year-old simply said, "Thank you."

The GI looked to the boy's father and nodded. His wife wept.

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