An East Side woman is using a pair of knitting needles to help support the war in Iraq.
Lynne Bergman and some of her co-workers are knitting and crocheting wool helmet liners expected to keep her husband and his reserve unit warm when they deploy in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
According to the U.S. National Climactic Data Center, freezing temperatures are seen as early as September and as late as April.
The liners that Bergman creates from her balls of yarn will not only make life easier for the troops, but it will also ease her anxiety, she said.
"You have the idea that if you make one for everybody in the unit, they will all come home safe," she said.
Bergman got the idea for the project after she checked the Web site of an organization that she is involved in called The Ships Project.
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The organization sends knitted items to troops overseas.
Bergman realized that the liners might be useful for her husband, whose name and branch of service weren't disclosed for security reasons, when he deploys in early 2007.
The helmet liners she makes are different from the ones issued by the military because they are made out of a special kind of wool that is machine-washable, she said.
"If you wash regular wool, it shrinks," she said. "It is definitely more convenient because the troops don't have time to hand-wash (the helmet liners)."
The liners insulate and repel liquid better than the military liners, Bergman said.
"The military ones are not made of a fabric that will keep them warm and dry," she said.
Seventy-five helmet liners need to be made by the end of this year, Bergman said. Each liner takes about six hours to make.
The project was not a cheap endeavor for Bergman, who had to pay $500 for the 100 balls of yarn that were needed.
It would cost even more if Bergman did not receive some help from her employer.
Bergman works at Purls, a yarn store at 7531 E. Broadway.
Bergman's manager, Myra Solomon, allowed her to buy the yarn at the store's cost, which was $500 less than the price she would have paid somewhere else.
"She came in and told us about (her husband), that he was going back in the winter," Solomon said. "We have known Lynne for a long time and would do anything to help her husband."
Bergman said she also received some help from some of her co-workers and friends, who contributed to the cost.
This not the first time that Bergman and her husband have had to prepare for a deployment.
Bergman's husband served in Vietnam and Operation Desert Storm, which began in 1991.
He traveled to Kuwait in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2002, she said.
Bergman could not send any items to her husband when he was in Vietnam, but she was able to send packages to him in subsequent deployments.
During Operation Desert Storm, Bergman said, she sent everything from magazines to microwave dinners and soups. Bergman also participated in the unit's family support group.
After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Bergman got involved with The Ships Project.
She started sending slippers, hats and shower gels to the troops who were deployed.
Bergman shipped about five pairs of slippers per month before she started working on the helmet liners, she said.
The handmade items remind the troops that someone still cares about them, Bergman said.
"It offsets anything negative said about the war," she said. "This is not politics — it's humanity."
East Side
