Jeff Riggs waves to Vicksburg Catholic School students during a pep rally Friday.(Melanie Duncan Thortis The Vicksburg Post)

[10/11/03]Home on leave after eight months in Iraq, Jeff Riggs thanked students at St. Aloysius’ Friday pep rally for care packages they had made possible.

Riggs, second-in-command at the Warren County Sheriff’s Department as a civilian, has been serving with the Vicksburg-based 168th Engineer Group of the Mississippi Army National Guard. He arrived Thursday night for his first home-leave of 15 days.

“I thank you from the bottom of my heart,” Riggs told Vicksburg Catholic School students gathered in the gym for the afternoon rally.

One day last spring, students at St. Aloysius High School were given the chance to pay one dollar each to come to school out-of-uniform, donating the money to a care-package fund for Riggs and members of his unit.

The plan to send the packages was initiated by St. Aloysius parent Jean Aldridge, who works with Riggs’ wife, Sherry, at United Medical Inc., 2480 S. Frontage Road.

“I just felt like we needed to do something,” Aldridge said. “And I thought this school is really into supporting the disabled, the needy, and, in this case, it was our troops. It was kind of like, you know, we don’t want to forget them.”

The students raised several hundred dollars on “Anything for a jean day,” school cheerleader sponsor Renee McGuffee said, on one of their last days of school before last summer.

Aldridge, Sherry Riggs and others did the shopping, for brand-name toiletries soldiers can’t get in Iraq, and sent the packages to Riggs, who distributed them there.

Riggs appeared Friday in Army desert camouflage, making his brief speech to a group that included students from St. Francis Xavier Elementary School.

“I wanted to let you know that the Iraqi people are grateful to the United States of America for what they’ve done to give them their freedom,” he said. “You live in the greatest nation on earth and you need to be proud of it.

“I’ve seen over there the schools that they have to go to,” he said, adding that the regime of the country’s deposed dictator, Saddam Hussein, “didn’t put any money into the school system. So you’ve got people in block buildings that have broken desks trying to get a formal education.”

Riggs also didn’t ignore the fact that he was addressing a football pep rally before Friday’s home game against Mize.

“I want to wish the St. Aloysius football team the same success that our military had in going to Iraq,” he said.

McGuffee said Riggs’ visit made a “huge impression” on at least one student she spoke with.

“One of the football players came up to me after the pep rally and told me how much it meant to him personally for Mr. Riggs to be there,” she said. “It just added so much to the day. He was just very impressed.”

Outside the pep rally, Riggs discussed some of the many types of construction and rebuilding projects the 168th has been doing in Iraq. A master sergeant who is providing staff guidance on civil-affairs operations, Riggs is to return on Oct. 24 for another six or so months in the country, where he is based near what is now a U.S. airfield about 35 miles north of the capital city of Baghdad.

“We’ve just finished rebuilding a medical clinic out of an old Baath party headquarters building in a little town called Yathrib,” Riggs said. “And we’re building two schools. We’re doing a six-classroom addition to that, restoring their youth recreational center. We’ve completed, just recently, a 2,200-yard irrigation-pipeline ditch to pump water to their fields.”

Returning Thursday night to his home from the Jackson airport, on the third day since he left Iraq, Riggs was greeted by an 11-year-old daughter, Kayla, who said she was speechless at first with surprise and disbelief.

“I was going to get a drink from the refrigerator and I saw him,” she said. “I was shocked. And then I thought it was a poster.”

Since Riggs has been gone, another member of the family has also begun a military career. Their son Jeremiah is in training at Ft. Benning, Ga., Sherry Riggs said.

“That’s what made him join the Army,” Sherry Riggs said of her husband’s service.