Cane carvers offer leg up to wounded veterans

BILL BOWDEN Comments 0
Published: November 14, 2009

ROGERS, Ark. (AP) — Jo McKenzie burned a personal message into a cane she was making for Luther Burnam Jr. of Panhandle, Texas: "Don't sneeze."

"Every time I sneezed, they shot me," Burnam, a Vietnam veteran with five Purple Hearts, had told McKenzie's husband, Stan.

Burnam told the couple he had been shot five times.

The McKenzies of Rogers are members of Woodcarvers of Northwest Arkansas, which participates in the Eagle Cane Program. Established in 2004 by Jack Nitz of Tulsa, the program connects woodcarvers with veterans who have been injured in the line of duty. The woodworkers carve "presentation canes" for the veterans.

The canes always have an eagle head on the handle, along with name, military information, honors and occasional personal messages. The program has spread to woodcarver groups in 32 states.

The program started out carving canes for veterans who were injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. If injured veterans of other wars request a cane, they can get one, too.

"I'm not going to tell them no," said Jo McKenzie, who has carved 12 canes for veterans. "It's the little we can do for what they're doing for us."

Burnam made his request three years ago when he met the McKenzies at a woodcarving event in Amarillo, Texas.

"How can I tell him no when he has five Purple Hearts?" asked McKenzie.

The Military Order of the Purple Heart is a medal presented to U.S. military personnel wounded or killed in the line of duty.

"I do the canes because my husband is a retired Air Force major," carver Kathy Morey of Rogers said, referring to her husband, Danny. "I've always been a patriotic person. This is such an easy way for me to show my respect for these young guys."

Morey was busy recently carving an eagle head for the next cane request she gets. She said it takes about 15 hours for her to make a cane for a veteran.

Morey has carved four canes for veterans. Others in the local group who have carved canes for veterans include Charles Wolfe of Springdale with five and Bonnie Berkihiser of Bentonville with one.

Army Sgt. Trent Carter of Camden was injured in August 2007 by a roadside bomb in Iraq. He suffered a broken back and kidney lacerations, in addition to other wounds.

While recuperating at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., Carter was put on the list to receive a cane, as are all Purple Heart recipients.

The cane, made by Morey, was presented to him in September.

"It was an emotional thing," said Carter, who is also a woodcarver. "That's something I don't take lightly or take for granted. I know how much time and thought she put into it. It's for people like her that we do what we do."

Carter said he hopes to meet Morey when he comes back to Arkansas. In the meantime, the cane she made him is with his parents in Camden. Carter is still in the Army, currently serving in a protocol office at Fort Richardson, just north of Anchorage, Alaska.

Carter said his cane included a motto he wanted: "So my family didn't have to."

"They're extremely personalized for each soldier," he said. "Nine out of 10 soldiers who gets one of those has no idea how much time goes into that, but I, as a woodcarver, do."

Nitz started the Eagle Cane Program after watching an ABC News television segment in 2004 about post-Sept. 11 veterans.

Nitz, who served in the Navy from 1948-57, said he realized there was "a little something" he, as a woodcarver and cane maker, could do to let injured veterans know they had support from people in their community and also honor them for their service.

"Since many of the veterans presented on the ABC segment displayed leg wounds and amputations and would most likely be using a cane at some time, I thought that we could carve symbolic presentation canes — not as an everyday-use object — but as an artistic representation of our support and respect," Nitz wrote on the Eagle Cane Project's Web site.

Nitz made a sample cane and showed it to the Eastern Oklahoma Woodcarvers Association, which adopted his idea of making canes for veterans in May of that year. Since then, woodcarver associations in another 31 states have joined the Eagle Cane Project, sending an estimated 2,500 canes to veterans.

"It lets you participate just a little bit," Nitz said. "Most of the old vets, this is what they want to do."

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Information from: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, http://www.arkansasonline.com

Dateline: Arkansas