Jefferson veteran earns unexpected thank you
Jefferson’s Linda Hagyari holds her commendation and quilt she received in September from the “Quilts of Honor” chapter in North Carolina. The surprise presentation came when she was visiting her daughter in Wake Forest.
A handmade quilt by Sally Crilley of Wake Forest, N.C., was given to Linda Hagyari.
Linda Hagyari stands with her husband, Larry, daughter, Amy Crilley, and two grandsons, Troy and Tristan, during a Labor Day weekend ceremony in Wake Forest, N.C. to thank her for her service.
A simple “thank you” directed toward a veteran can make their day, but Linda Hagyari got that and a whole lot more from a group of mostly strangers while visiting her daughter recently in North Carolina.
Hagyari, who served briefly at the Pentagon as a U.S. Army communications specialist during the Vietnam War, was presented with a quilt and commendation during a surprise ceremony at American Legion Post 187 in Wake Forest, N.C.
The women of that area’s “Quilts of Honor” organization that gives quilts to veterans literally shrouded the 67-year-old Jefferson woman in a handmade blanket and thanked her for her service.
Hagyari was visiting her daughter, Amy Crilley, and her family over Labor Day weekend and she was moved by the generosity and thoughtfulness to thank a stranger for her service.
“It was overwhelming,” she said as she hugged the ladies who presented her the quilt. “I didn’t even know some of them.”
Amy Crilley’s mother-in-law, Sally, is a member of the “Quilts of Honor” and wanted to do something nice. She noted many of the quilts they give away are to stranger or people not from that area. Her husband served in the Army and passed away earlier this year, so she thought it was a good way to honor another veteran.
“Most of our quilts do go to strangers,” Sally Crilley said. “They might be people we don’t know, but they’re people who deserve them.”
Hagyari’s military service goes back more than four decades ago, but it’s still vivid in her memory.
Hagyari trained to become a communications specialist at Fort Gordon near Augusta, Ga. Out of the 31 soldiers in her three-month training session, 29 of them went to fight in Vietnam.
She worked communication switchboards in the Pentagon beginning in June 1969 and served in that capacity for more than a year.
She doesn’t know how many of her fellow trainees returned home from the war, making it an impossible task for her to visit the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C.
“It was an honor,” Hagyari said of her time in the military. “The guys were very supportive. I did my job like any man or woman would do. To be equals, we had to do a little more, we had to step it up.”
She was honorably discharged as a corporal in August 1970 after serving 19 months, leaving through an “early out program” offered to recently-married women.
Serving in the military was a family tradition, she said. Her father served in the Marines and her brother was in the Navy. She worked for Bell Telephone for less than a year while living in Buckingham County, Va., before enlisting and going through basic training in January 1969 at the height of the Vietnam War
“It was a spur-of-the-moment thing,” she said. “I’ve never regretted it. I love my country.”
Now, the quilt given to her in North Carolina has left an impression on her about how others feel about military service. It’s also the second time she’d been thanked for her service.
She remembered a moment two years ago when she was waiting in line at a fast food restaurant in Franklin Township and noticed four soldiers standing in uniform near her. She went out of her way to thank them and mentioned her service.
They turned the tables and shook her hand instead, she said.
“Wherever we go, we need to thank these veterans,” Hagyari said. “We don’t realize all the things they’re doing. Their lives are on the line every day.
“They’re not thanked enough.”