Fairgoers message support to soldiers

[unhappycamper]

Ethan Nelson of Omaha, above, helps fold a card he made on a computer at the Nebraska State Fair, courtesy of Operation: Military Kids.


Fairgoers message support to soldiers
BY TIM ELFRINK
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
Published Friday | August 31, 2007


TATE FAIR PARK — Smiling into a video camera, Cheryl Cihal repeated the phrase for her son in Iraq: "Love you. Bye! Love you. Bye! Love you. Bye!"

After the camera was turned off, she explained the ritual.

"When he's able to call, we always say that back and forth to each other three times. It's just one of those things where neither one of us wants to hang up."

Cihal hadn't been able to repeat those words to her son, Spc. Scott Cihal, since she learned that a roadside bomb ripped his vehicle in half on Sunday, sending the Valparaiso, Neb., native to the hospital with injuries deemed not life-threatening.

That's what brought her to the Nebraska State Fair this week with her daughter, Sonya Shurter. Both decided they needed to get out of the house after days of fruitlessly waiting for more information on his condition.

Just by chance — between the booths selling fried Twinkies and the busloads of high school marching bands — they stumbled into an air-conditioned building equipped with a line of laptop computers that allow fairgoers to create electronic greeting cards and video messages for deployed soldiers and their families.



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