Sergeant Joseph Turner's Family

Petition for Sergeant Joseph Turners family


On behalf of Sergeant Joseph E. Turner, US Army (12 year veteran).

We, the members of Sergeant Turners Hometown Community of Longview Texas, his American Legion Post 131 (Longview Texas), and the Nationwide Community, do, hereby PETITION the influences of the Senators and Congressmans Offices and Administrations.

It is necessary for SGT Turner to receive assistance from our Senators and Congressmen in the action of filing for, providing the fees for, and receiving his fiancй and seven year old daughter from the country of Honduras before he is redeployed to the middle-east.

Issues at hand are; the short time he has remaining in-country, or, in the Army because of Compassionate reasons involving family. The time it takes an individual to process and pay for immigrations services and because of circumstances in the past year out of his control which has caused financial difficulties in his life at this time.

SGT Turner needs his family, and we need our brother in arms. He is a very important part of our community and our country. Your support is very much appreciated.
Below you will find one of soon to be many stories of his lifetime love.
Thank you and God Bless you.

"AFTER YEARS OF SILENT HEARTBREAK, SOLDIER REUNITED WITH SWEETHEART FROM HONDURAS"

By WES FERGUSON. Published in the "Longview News Journal"
Saturday, April 09, 2005

Joseph Turner fell in love with the daughter of a Honduran coffee-seller, and life was beautiful, until he lost her.
Turner met his sweetheart, Derlis, in the mid-1990s when he was stationed in Honduras. They had a little girl together, named Sharleht. She was six months old when Turner's tour in Honduras was up, and he tried to get reassigned there, but the U.S. Army had outsourced his job to civilian contractors.
Derlis and Sharleht would have to come to America.
"The next year we stayed in contact and made plans," he said. "All the paperwork had to be changed because I wasn't out of the country anymore."
Then Hurricane Mitch struck Honduras, ravaging much of the country. He lost contact with Derlis, and months, then years, went by. In his grief, he buried himself in his work at Fort Campbell, Ky., where he was an aviation mechanic.
"That was the last time I heard from her, and it was really heartbreaking, man," he said. "The more broke a man is, the more valuable he is to his unit."
He was stationed in Germany for a while, and later went to war in Iraq. While on leave, he visited his father's house in East Texas.
"A letter arrived in Longview while I was there," he said. "Dad walks up and gives this letter to me and, man, I could barely breathe. It was really something. She stated in the letter that she had written a few times and I never responded back."
Later, he found her earlier letters at the top of his grandmother's closet. His grandmother had a degenerative disease similar to Alzheimer's, he said, and kept the letters because she mistook him for her late husband.
Turner and Derlis had a lot of catching-up to do. Only six months old when he left, Sharleht was now seven years old. They ran up a $700 phone bill, and he took an extended leave to spend a few weeks with his family in Honduras.
He learned that Derlis was devastated when Turner didn't write her back. Like Turner, she buried her grief in her work. He said she has a job for a ball cap and T-shirt manufacturer, where she manages the books and serves as an interpreter.
Turner bought a house outside Fort Campbell and filed the paperwork in January for Derlis and Sharleht to come to the United States. He said the process will cost several thousands of dollars and take up to four months.
His father, Warren Turner, and his father's friend, Buddy Vickery, have started a petition asking elected officials to speed up the process. The petition is at the American Legion building at 1313 E. Marshall Ave.
Joseph Turner isn't so worried about waiting four months. He's got a new job with the Army filing soldiers' income taxes, and he's feeling a little pinched with his own funds.
Whatever he has to pay, he said, it's worth it to see Derlis and Sharleht.
"It's like a fairy tale," he said. "I don't know how to describe it. It's so beautiful."