9/11: Bob Roe
Bob Roe of Broken Arrow slips pages of poems and literature into a scrapbook for the family of an Oklahoma soldier killed recently in Afghanistan on Aug. 16, 2011. Roe makes the books with no strings attached for fallen soldiers from Oklahoma and Wisconsin, his home state, in part to honor his younger brother who was killed in Vietnam. JEFF LAUTENBERGER/Tulsa World
Bob Roe is a busy man. Busier than he’d like to be. Since 2004, Roe has crafted, by hand, more than 500 albums for 328 families (and counting) of soldiers who lost their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq. Inspired by the loss of his younger brother in Vietnam, all Roe wants to do is say thanks, in his own way. When talking to him, he humbly brushes off the time, money and effort spent. It’s all worth it, he says. Someone has to do it.