WHAT:
The Texas Tech Military and Veterans National Alumni Chapter and the Office of the President will host speaker and alumna Ginger Gilbert Ravella, who will speak on behalf of the Folds of Honor Foundation and share her story as the wife of Maj. Troy Gilbert, a Texas Tech alumnus and Air Force fighter pilot who was killed in November 2006 in Iraq during a rescue mission.
WHEN:
5:30 p.m. Tuesday (Feb. 7)
WHERE:
McKenzie-Merket Alumni Center, 2521 17th St.
WHO:
Gilbert Ravella and Troy Gilbert are 1993 Texas Tech graduates. After leaving the university, Gilbert joined the U.S. Air Force and was deployed in 2006 to Balad Air Base in Iraq.
When Gilbert was killed, insurgents stole his body before U.S. soldiers could reach the crash site, and 10 years passed before he was fully recovered and laid to rest Dec. 19 at Arlington National Cemetery.
Gilbert Ravella will speak of that journey, her work with the Folds of Honor Foundation and of the life she and her children built with her second husband, Col. Jim Ravella, an Air Force fighter pilot who endured the death of his first wife, Andrea. The Ravellas’ story of loss, love and hope was originally shared on their blog, Our Journey to Healing, and will be published as a book, “Hope Found,” this spring by WestBow Press.
(News release from Texas Tech University)
