Post helps woman attend dad s military burial

Anyone who has been in business or involved with charitable organizations knows connections are invaluable. Sheri Rhodes learned last week that knowing the right person who knew the right people could allow her to witness her father's burial in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
The Veterans of Foreign Wars Tri-Cities Post No. 6872 — which serves Burleson, Crowley and Joshua — was able to procure airline tickets for Rhodes, of Arlington, and a friend to fly to Washington, D.C., Monday to attend the interment of her father, retired U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Gerald Rhodes of North Richland Hills, who died Jan. 5.
So how does an Arlington women come to get help from a VFW post in a different sector of the region?
Connections.
Vicki Ray of the Wounded Warriors project was in touch with Sheri Rhodes, who told her she could not afford to get to the ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. Ray knows Tri-Cities Post Commander David Bowers and got the ball rolling.
“She sent me an email saying she needed help on a case,” Bowers said. “I looked at it and called Sheri. We worked on everything, and we were able to get her everything she needed.”
Again connections came into play. Bowers called contacts at Southwest Airlines, and they arranged to provide complimentary tickets for Rhodes and a friend.
After flying to the national's capital Monday, “We did all the standard operating procedure things,” Rhodes said. Sgt. Rhodes was scheduled to be buried in the famed military cemetery Wednesday.
Sheri Rhodes will be the family's only representative at the ceremony.
“I have two older sisters,” she said. “Unfortunately, they can't make it.”
Sgt. Rhodes was a Vietnam veteran who served in the Air Force from 1967-1988. He also served in Turkey, Germany and the Congo, where he was shot. Intelligence work was one of his duties, his daughter said.
The veteran had always hoped to be interred in Arlington National Cemetery, and Sheri did most of the paperwork and working through red tape to have her father buried in one of the nation's most hallowed burial grounds.
“It took a lot of phone calls and a lot of praying,” Sheri Rhodes said. “It was a dream of his. He wanted to go to a big party in the sky with the rest of those guys.”
While there, she will also be able to fulfill her father's dying wish.
“One of my dad's wishes was to see The Wall,” she said, referring to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. “So I'm going to go there. He asked me to touch a name of a friend. “So I'll do that and say, ‘Watch out. He's on his way.'”