Iowa Veterans Home Staff Honors the Troops

The Marshalltown Times Republican has a story about the nurses at the Iowa Veterans Home who are wearing red t-shirts on Fridays in honor of our troops.

The idea was voiced in June by a lone staff member during one unit’s morale-boosting Pay It Forward campaign for nursing assistants week, said Nurse Supervisor Margie Button.

The approximately 40 nurses on the fourth floor of IVH’s Dack Building ran with the idea, getting shirts made just for the occasion.

Those shirts feature a yellow ribbon to recognize both what current troops are giving up to secure freedom for Americans and also what veterans — particularly IVH’s residents — gave up to serve when they did, Button said.

On the front, they say “IVH, Care to wear” and on the back, “Get your red on.”

The ideas has spread to include many of the residents and staff on other floors at the Veterans Home.

I heard about this a couple weeks ago from 2 different people with ties to the Veterans Home and both told me the staff planned on wearing the shirts every Friday until our troops were redeployed out of Iraq. This was not mentioned in the article.