Thanks to the Cary News April 3, 2007 edition written by Emily Matchar

One evening last year, Lil Seastrom saw something on the TV news that brought her to tears.

"They showed these amputees ... and it just hit me so hard that I cried," she said. "I said to my husband, 'what can I do?'"

Seastrom, 89, a former professional seamstress, went into the sewing room of her Cary home and pondered how she could best help the wounded men.

The answer came to her: She could use her skills to make blankets for soldiers hospitalized at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

She brought the idea to her Sunday school class at Greenwood Forest Baptist Church, which decided to take on the task as one of their mission activities. The "Warmth for the Wounded" project was born.

Seastrom got in touch with the military chaplain's office at Walter Reed, where she was told that the hospital was so crowded that many men were laying on gurneys in the hall, their blankets too short to cover them completely.

Walter Reed has been in the media over the past month for reportedly housing soldiers in substandard conditions, resulting in the resignations of several top hospital officials.

Seastrom and her friends sewed 108 extra-long blankets, each one decorated in a patriotic motif. They sewed together once a month and the rest of the time Seastrom was "sewing like mad" on her own.

The project would have ended with the delivery of the blankets to Fort Bragg for transportation to Walter Reed, if it were not for a friend of Seastrom's who contacted U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge of North Carolina to inform him about the project.

Etheridge's office arranged for Seastrom to join Etheridge on a trip to Walter Reed on March 23, Seastrom's birthday, to deliver the blankets to North Carolina amputees.

She visited three young soldiers.

"The last one I saw, he was really wounded," she said. "He managed to give us a little smile."

The experience left her near tears.

"My voice got so squeaky I could hardly talk," she said. "I was so embarrassed. I wanted to be so brave for them."