Sunday's Internet Edition, September 07, 2008.
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Editor - A soldier serving with the local National Guard unit in Iraq was returning to the United States after a fire destroyed her family’s home.
Sgt. Carla Sloter, a member of the 821st W.Va. Army National Guard unit based in Spencer, has been serving in Iraq since October. Arrangements were made for her to come home last weekend following the April 24 fire in Warren Township, Ohio.
Authorities said the fire was electrical in nature and started near the fuse box. No one was home at the time of the fire, which was reported by a passing motorist, but Sloter’s husband, Robert, and 4-year-old son, Marshall, were left with nothing.
“He was standing there watching it with me and he said, ‘My house is on fire, Papa; it’s where I’ve lived all my life,” Robert Sloter said of his son on Parkersburg television station WTAP’s Web site.
Firemen from three departments battled the blaze after an initial attempt to control it failed because of a lack of water in the rural area.
“They lost everything,” Leslie Myers, secretary for the 821st Family Readiness Group, said. “No toys, nothing. All they had was the clothes they had on when they walked out that morning.”
Robert Sloter and his son are staying with his parents, who live nearby.
“It’s been really crazy, but the community support has just been phenomenal,” Robert Sloter told The Marietta Times. Robert Sloter is also a member of the National Guard who is currently serving stateside.
Myers said Carla Sloter was one of only two women originally deployed to Iraq with the 821st.
“I was in shock,” Myers, a Parkersburg resident whose husband, Christopher, is with the Guard in Iraq, said of hearing about the fire. “(The Sloters) are so helpful to everybody. It’s hard to see when this happens to one of your soldiers’ families. We’re going to be there for them as much as we can.”
Myers said the Family Readiness Group is accepting donations to help the family. Marshall wears size 5 clothing.
Monetary donations can be made to the Sloter Emergency Fund at any WesBanco location or by calling Myers at 428-2062.
Donations can be made locally by calling Family Readiness Group officers Art and Janie Boggs at 577-6074.
