Afghans arrived near a small Virginia town, exposing two different versions of America https://t.co/BgVtxoNzrS — The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) September 25, 2021 The Washington Post once again demonstrating why local reporting is important: BLACKSTONE, Va. — Mayor Billy Coleburn finished his burger, pulled out his cellphone and braced himself for the two dozen Facebook notifications …
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Coleburn, who is also the owner and editor of the local newspaper, the Courier-Record, says it broke the news in late August that Fort Pickett would likely be called on by the federal government to host thousands of Afghans who left in the wake of the Taliban takeover.
Now the front page of his weekly newspaper was splashed with a bold red headline, “Afghan Numbers Rise,” next to the mug shot of the arrested Afghan man, and its pages had suddenly become a sounding board for the split opinions on welcoming their new neighbors…
Blackstone, a diverse community where roughly half the residents are Black, is also in a deeply conservative area of Virginia, with a big military and veteran population. Men and women in army green fatigues from Fort Pickett can often be seen walking along the pristinely kept Main Street, passing recently remodeled storefronts. As he walks to the Brew House for lunch, Coleburn picks up a stray chewing gum wrapper on the sidewalk and throws it in a trash can. “Drives me crazy,” he says.
The town, he says, has taken immense pride in being the home of Fort Pickett, Blackstone’s major employer. So when he heard some complaints after the base was selected as a housing location for Afghan evacuees, “I said, folks, you can’t sit here and say, ‘We love Fort Pickett,’ and then all of a sudden we get a mission and go, ‘Oh hell no, we don’t want that.’”
Still, to Coleburn, Fort Pickett did seem a bit of an unlikely place to bring thousands of evacuees with critical needs, many arriving with little else than the clothes they were wearing. “This is in a rural area with not a lot of infrastructure. The nearest hospital is 35 miles away,” Coleburn said, and as an added challenge, “a bunch of people are wide-eyed and watching Fox News. Ain’t a lot of MSNBC ‘Morning Joe’ fans around here.”…
Rebecca Freeze, an Iraq combat veteran who lives about 10 miles east of Blackstone in an unincorporated community called Darvills — “a suburb of Blackstone,” she jokes — had been to Fort Pickett after the arrival of the Afghans and had seen what was happening in Blackstone. And what she witnessed had, at least on one occasion, brought her to tears.
Her friend thought to start a Facebook page for donations and volunteers to help their new neighbors but got “some kickback from people who knew her that wasn’t positive,” Freeze said. “So I told her, well let me start the Facebook page, because after 27 years in the Army, let ‘em come. As a female combat veteran I can get PMS and PTSD at the same time.”
So she started the Facebook page — Helping Afghans in Southern VA — and instead of any negative reactions she got a rush of eager volunteers, turning the page into a mosaic of unique contributions. A local artist used proceeds from the artwork he sold to buy soccer balls for Afghan kids. A chiropractor’s office started collecting toys. Renee and David Cannon, the owners of a clothing store on Main Street that had gone out of business, donated culturally appropriate merchandise to the Afghans.
Renee Cannon, 65, said her father, Adren Quest Hance Sr., sponsored two young Vietnamese refugees — and later, the other family members of those refugees — to come live with them in their small town in Hanover County after the Vietnam War, helping them find jobs and learn English and build new lives. When thousands of Afghans began arriving at Fort Pickett, she wanted to live up to what he had taught her years before…