Family of Mobile truck driver missing in Iraq keep hope alive

[Ripley]

By GARRY MITCHELL
Associated Press Writer

As hours passed Friday, friends and relatives of a Mobile truck driver working in Iraq grew hopeful that he would be coming home after learning that a soldier abducted in a convoy was alive.

While Houston-based Halliburton Co. would not confirm Timothy E. Bell was one of its missing employees, a company spokesman did not dispute the family's claim that the 44-year-old father of two was in the convoy attacked on an Iraqi highway last week.

Bell, an electrician, went to Iraq about a year ago for Kellogg, Brown & Root, a division of Halliburton, to earn money to start his own business in Mobile, according to his family.

"I saw him the Sunday before Mardi Gras this year. He was sitting in a convertible," said William Dotch, who said he's known Bell for about 10 years. "He said he'd been working hard and came home from Iraq for Mardi Gras."

http://tuscaloosanews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040416/APN/404161007


There seems to be plenty of Americans willing to do these extremely dangerous jobs for money. Just curious how people will react to this guy's story, since there was so much vitriol towards the white dairy farmer who was taken hostage. (There is no picture on the online story, but the paper shows Bell to be a black Army veteran.)