CityView Magazine

Editor’s corner I secretly want to be a Rollergirl alas, someone would also have to give me athletic ability and, well, attitude. Talk about iron fists in velvet gloves, the women of Fayetteville’s roller derby league slam, shove and skate, all while wearing lipstick. When they show up to a bout dressed in their camouflage uniforms, the opposing team must think that the Army has rolled into town. And it is a small army of housewives, professionals and, yes, full-fledged members of the military. It reminds me that even in a military G Please visit www.CityViewNC. com for photos from the groundbreaking of the new Forces Command Headquarters on Fort Bragg. town, it’s rare to find many places where military and civilian worlds collide. Don’t get me wrong, we shop, eat and live in the same places. But how often do we truly intersect? That’s what I like about this issue. Our writers take us into a Fort Bragg home, onto the roller derby rink and center stage for the Army Soldier Show. We sit down for lunch at McKellar’s Lodge and climb into the ring with Staff Sgt. Tim Kennedy, a Fort Bragg Special Forces soldier and up-and-coming star of the country’s fast-growing sport, mixed martial arts. So much is happening that so many of us never see. Unless you have reason to drive on post, you may not know about the new $288.5 million Forces Command headquarters being built on Fort Bragg. Likewise, soldiers still discovering our city may not know about the exciting things that continue to happen downtown. Last summer, folks banded together to create an army of volunteers known as the Army’s Army. 10|February/March • 2009 ive me the cool nickname, the killer calf muscles and the skates, of course, wide and fat like the ones of my childhood. But And then there are the smaller things. Every year, the Military Affairs Council, a part of the Fayetteville-Cumberland County Chamber of Commerce, takes military wives on a tour of Fayetteville landmarks. Thousands of elementary school children write letters to troops deployed overseas. And as I write, families are being asked to open their homes to soldiers for the annual Evening of CARE on Feb. 7, a fundraiser for the CARE Clinic. Last year, organizers sent out 100 letters, hoping for at least 15 or 20 people willing to sponsor a soldier’s meal and a nice evening out. “We wound up getting, seriously,” Joanne Chavonne said, “104 dinners sponsored.” To be sure, they were scrambling, but everyone did it cheerfully, including Dorothy Royal, the one woman in charge of cooking 700 meals in one night. That’s a lot of lasagna. By the end, soldiers joined civilians at homes scattered across Fayetteville to raise $60,000 for the downtown clinic. But it nearly pales in comparison to what this community gave to 1,000 new and expecting mothers. You can read more about the “world’s largest baby shower” on Page 45. “So many people want to help our military,” Chavonne said, “they just don’t know how.” So if you want to know more about the military – or think you already know everything – here’s your mission: keep reading.CV Allison Williams, Editor

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