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A peafowl connection to Iraq

SEADRIFT - A couple from Seadrift and an Army helicopter pilot in Iraq and his wife back home in Kansas have struck up a friendship from a cyberspace intersection of peafowl and patriotism. Bill and Bridget McGill live in a house on the road to Port O'Connor. He designs Web sites and sells peafowl. He runs a site, peafowlareus.com, with a forum and where he answers questions about the iridescent birds. Chad Trenary had some questions.

McGill said, "From my Web site, I got an e-mail from a soldier, and I e-mailed him back and found he was in Iraq, so I sent him a private message."

Trenary is a warrant officer in the Army, a helicopter pilot. His wife, Wendy, is waiting with their children on their farm in Kansas. They have some peafowl on the farm.

Wendy said, "My husband posted a couple of questions on the peacock forum. We have some peacocks and this year, they're old enough to breed, so he had some general peacock questions."

Bill and Bridget McGill hold the big American flag that she crocheted. They will give the flag to Chad Trenary, an Army warrant officer stationed at Camp Korean Village in Anbar Province, Iraq

Speaking from Iraq, nine hours later than Central Time, Chad said, "I work nights so I'm up all night. I fly Blackhawks for Army medevac missions supporting the Marines. This is my second tour.

"It's pretty good here, real slow. I'm over on the far west side of the country, and it's a lot slower here than in the big cities. A slow day for me means that nobody is getting hurt, so that's good," he said.

Visit the McGills and Bill pulls out a boxed flag with attendant certification that the flag has waved over Camp Korean Village and flown a mission with Chad on July 19. Bill's enormously proud of the flag. "We'll keep it always," he said.

The flag was Chad's response to an offer from Bill.

Bill said, "I said, 'Chad, I want to show my support. I want to send you some peafowl.'

"He said no, but I said, 'I really want to do this for you.'"

Wendy said, "He's planning to send us some birds, but it got too hot. They can't ship them in this heat. We don't want them to die."

Chad said, "When I was home in June on R and R, I talked to him, and when I got back over, I thought it was pretty nice of him, so I sent him the flag."

The McGills were so touched by the gift of the flag that they are going to reciprocate with a flag of their own. Bridget, 47, crocheted until recently, and her magnum opus was an American flag, about 6-by-8 feet.

Green Java peacocks stroll in a pen at the McGills' house near Seadrift. Most of the peafowl Bill McGill sells online are shipped by a partner in Angleton, but Bill raises a few birds on his place. He has been raising poultry since he was 16 and gives advice about birds at his Web site.

Bill said, "It was real special when we got the flag from Chad. This is Bridget's best flag. She finished it on Sept. 11. It took a while ... I'd say a year. It won grand champion in the Calhoun County Fair.

"I wanted to send it to the president, but she said no. But she said yes when I wanted to send it to Chad. We're going to send Bridget's flag out in a couple of weeks," he said.

"They live in Enterprise, Kan. They found an old farmhouse, and last time he came home he was painting it. They have some poultry."

Chad's homecoming is in October. Last trip, his plane landed at Dallas-Fort Worth. "I appreciate it in Texas when we fly into D-FW airport. They have fire trucks come out and shoot water over the airplane, People are lined up to shake our hands. I really appreciate the support from Texans."

Wendy says that she and Chad are both 33 years old. They have three boys - Schuyler, 11; Hunter, 9; and Tristan, 5. Chelsey is Tristan's twin sister. Chad is four years from retirement. He will get a promotion to CW3 next month.

Bill McGill shows the certificate that accompanied the flag he received from a yberfriend in Iraq, a helicopter pilot who had flown a mission with the flag onboard his Blackhawk.

The farm is near Enterprise, Kan. Chad said, "I'm originally from Oklahoma. I'm stationed at Fort Riley, Kan., so we just got really lucky when I came back from Korea in the fall of 2004, and we were just blessed with being able to find a farm there. We're going to retire there.

"This is probably not my last tour here," he said. "I've probably got another one lined up for 2008."

Bill said, "The last time they flew Chad into Dallas. We may go meet him if they do that again. I've never met him."

McGill's father, Ralph McGill Sr., a retired Navy officer and veteran of World War II and Vietnam, died Aug. 27. He was buried Friday in Houston with full military honors. The flag that draped his casket was the flag from Chad Trenary.

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