The Fighting 69th has traveled halfway around the world to fight for freedom. While the Army will give these National Guard troops a free ticket to fly home from Iraq, getting home for the holidays is another story.

The New York regiment’s Veteran Corps, run by Command Sergeant Major Thomas Fitzsimmons, who is retired, is giving $1,000 to each of the 22 men so seriously wounded in Iraq that they were sent to recover in American hospitals. Some will visit their families; many will use the money so that their families can visit them.

The gift is part of a drive Sergeant Major Fitzsimmons has been conducting since September 2004 to raise money to cover travel costs for the families of soldiers. The military provides some financial support, but much more is needed.

To date, Sergeant Major Fitzsimmons has collected close to $117,000 – far more than he thought possible – and distributed nearly $114,000.

The regiment – the 1st Battalion, 69th Infantry, New York Army National Guard – shipped out for Iraq in November 2004. Some soldiers left from Fort Hood in Texas, others from Fort Polk in Louisiana, where they were trained. Some came from a Louisiana National Guard unit that joined the regiment in Task Force Wolfhound, the dog of the Irish Kings that serves as Mascot for the historically Irish regiment.

Because the Army sends returning soldiers back to the base from which they left, 14 of the Fighting 69th’s severely wounded were sent to hospitals in those two southern states. The remaining six ended up at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

The month before the unit shipped out, the Battalion Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey Slack, told Sergeant Major Fitzsimmons that the corps would need to raise $50,000. He said the figure staggered him, but by December he raised nearly $20,000 from members of the Veteran Corps.

When the unit’s first wounded soldier was sent to Texas, Sergeant Major Fitzsimmons said he realized he would need much more money for airfare. He started giving presentations to companies and community groups such as Long Island’s Glenn Cove division of the Ancient Order of Hibernians in America, or the Kalikow Group.

As word got out, the money flowed in.

The sister of one wounded soldier told Sergeant Major Fitzsimmons that when her brother returned, doctors and nurses would not be enough: Someone had to be there to hug and kiss him. The Veteran Corps gave her the money to visit him.

Though Sergeant Major Fitzsimmons has only met some of the soldiers face-to-face, all 22 have become personal friends with him and his wife, who takes their phone calls when he cannot.

The regiment came home from Iraq in September. As its wounded slowly heal, Sergeant Major Fitzsimmons says he is scaling down the fund raising. A few of soldiers, however, will never fully recover and may continue to need the corps’s help, he said.

The Veteran Corps will grow not just from its own soldiers, but also from the men and women of the Louisiana National Guard unit who joined Task Force Wolfhound, Sergeant Major Fitzsimmons said. They so love the Fighting 69th and its history – legend has it that Robert E. Lee gave the regiment its nickname – that the corps will amend its bylaws to include them.

On the national stage, Fisher House, an charity organization that helps military families, runs a program called Hero Miles, which gives donated frequent flier miles to servicemen and their families.