SEBRING — When Army Sgt. First Class Judy Puffenbarger went to Iraq, a photo of her taken when her unit was being deployed to the war was sent to her hometown in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. Everybody who saw it broke out in laughter. Puffenbarger's blonde hair has grown back, but the day before she left for the war zone she shaved her head. "I did it on a bet, a bet I lost," the 49-year-old Avon Park resident said at the Veterans Administration Community Based Outpatient Clinic, where she works as a receptionist. Puffenbarger, whose father was a World War II Army veteran who lost one of his legs in the battle of Okinawa, bet members of her squad that they would not be deployed to the Iraq war. She offered to shave her head if the order came down for her 33-person unit to ship out to the war. ...more

May 25, 2008