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6B I DAWSON COUNTY NEWS I dawsonnews.com
Wednesday, January 4,2023
Dawson doctor helps minister to Ukrainians
Photos submitted to DCN
Dr. Larry Anderson, right, visits with the medical director, left, and assistant medical director, center, at a hospital in Kharkiv.
Photo submitted to DCN.
Above left,This Ukrainian checkpoint during Anderson's trip sports a type of structural ghillie suit to disguise the shape
and make of the building so it can't be easily targeted. Above right. During his trip, Anderson visits a 20-by-40-foot, 24/7
Ukrainian warming tent that's fit for about 100 people standing and usually visited by about 500 people a day.
By Julia Hansen
jhansen@dawsonnews.com
After previously helping
Ukrainian refugees who’ve fled
to northern Georgia, one
Dawson County doctor recently
traveled to the Eastern European
nation to help people in need
there.
About a month ago, Dr. Larry
Anderson returned from a two-
week trip to Ukraine to help
jumpstart chaplain programs for
law enforcement offices across
that country.
Chaplains are essentially lay
church representatives who, in
the United States, are often
attached to institutions like fire
or police departments or the mil
itary.
Anderson, who started a local
family medicine practice in
2005, is also involved with the
Rotary Club of Dawson County.
Members of the Dawson chapter
have been working with area
churches to help local Ukrainian
refugees since the Eastern
European country’s war with
Russia began in February.
Specifically, Anderson has
helped provide refugees with the
church with medical care during
their first month in America.
Anderson also heads the coun
ty’s health board and serves on
the board for the local Good
Shepherd Clinic, which provides
healthcare for those in need.
Likewise, he serves as a
Presbyterian church elder.
The longtime doctor said the
opportunity to help on the
ground in Ukraine “kind of came
secondary"’ for him.
“It was dealing mainly with
how to help the Ukrainian refu
gees and then, ‘How do I help
Ukrainian refugees back in their
country?’”, Anderson said.
His avenue to help came from
his prior contact with Ukrainian
chaplains. Anderson’s trip lasted
from Nov. 27 until Dec. 10. The
chaplain efforts began with a
two-day meeting in Warsaw,
Poland, before he and his col
leagues for the trip split and trav
eled to different parts of Ukraine
before meeting up again.
For Anderson, he was able to
go to Lviv (pronounced Luh-
veev), Kharkiv (har-kiv) and
Kyiv (Kuh-yeev) as well as three
to four other cities.
While Ukraine’s military and
judiciary have chaplains,
Anderson explained that the law
enforcement, who are all under
the national police, do not.
During his time there,
Anderson met with about 30
other chaplains and chiefs of
police in six major cities to dis
cuss chaplain services. He would
suggest different organizational
techniques and ways to develop
chaplain training programs.
“The other thing I did is I met
with the medical chiefs of staff
for two different hospitals and
went into the wards to see
wounded soldiers. I met with
them to discuss the needs and
care that they received,”
Anderson said.
After speaking at three differ
ent churches via interpreters, the
doctor described favorable
responses from attendees at
those locations.
“People would come up and
say ‘Thank you for being here.
You give us hope,”’ Anderson
added. “It was a way to boost
morale and let them know that
the world was watching and
helping them.”
Anderson’s trip to Ukraine
was actually his second time in a
war zone but his first such occa
sion as a civilian. During the
Vietnam War, Anderson served
as a soldier in the U.S. Army’s
1st cavalry unit riding on
Chinook helicopters.
For his Ukraine trip, he and
his colleagues ventured further
east in the country, coming with
in six miles of the Russian bor
der. While most of the fighting is
still generally concentrated in
Ukraine’s southeastern region,
home to areas like Crimea, trav
eling to that region is still precar
ious. Anderson said he knew the
risks.
Despite the wartime environ
ment, he said he still saw
Ukrainians’ overall resilience to
fight for their country clearly on
display, with checkpoints cov
ered in camouflage materials
called a ghillie suit and road
signs with words spray-painted
black so that Russian military,
who use the same language,
couldn’t find their way around
Ukraine.
He noted how many of the
checkpoints had at least half
women guards, with others hav
ing all female personnel, and
Anderson wondered if that was
intentional.
“They said ‘No, this is us
looking at who’s the most quali
fied person regardless of gender
to do this job, and this is the way
it came out,” he said.
Anderson also mentioned a
Ukrainian Rotary chapter selling
shell canisters online to raise
money for food and clothing for
refugees.
He recalled a mix of stories
about often-scheduled blackouts
for sometimes half or whole cit
ies that left people for days or
weeks on end without water,
electricity, heating or elevator
service. That left Ukrainians
there to plan ahead for how they
would cook, eat, do laundry or
simply stay warm, perhaps with
specific shelters, during the dead
of winter, Anderson said.
“Everyone had a very positive
attitude in fighting this war. I
saw no one complaining about
the inconvenience,” he added.
In the future, Anderson hopes
to get several more automated
external defibrillators to nurses
over in Ukraine, who tend to
serve in a similar role as social
workers. He’s also working on
medical cases for a few
Ukrainian patients or people he
knows about, and there’s also a
project with a Ukrainian Rotary
chapter on the horizon for him.
“I’m very fortunate and very
blessed to be able to go over
there and do that,” Anderson said
of his trip.
Just as his experiences will
stay with him, Anderson was
also given multiple meaningful
mementos to remember his time
in Ukraine, such as an American
flag that, until its discovery, was
buried under the rubble of a
fourth grade English class at an
elementary school hit by a
Russian missile attack.
Another gift was an artwork of
a Ukrainian woman carrying a
rifle given to him near the end of
his stay. The vibrant artwork fea
tures amber at its top that was
mined in Ukraine and a unique
phrase included at its bottom to
pay homage to Ukrainian wom
en’s fighting spirit.
“I’ve had several Ukrainians
loosely translate it for me who
all said it [reads as] the same
thing,” Anderson said. “It basi
cally says ‘Even pretty women
fight.”
Handful of new laws to take effect in Ga. this week
By Dave Williams
Capitol Beat News Service
Most bills the General
Assembly passes each year
take effect on July 1.
But a smattering of new laws
enacted during the 2022 legis
lative session will kick in this
Sunday, Jan. 1, including a bill
making it easier for food trucks
to do business and several new
or expanded tax credits.
The food truck legislation
does away with a current
requirement in Georgia law
that food truck operators obtain
a permit and inspection in
every county where they do
business.
“Almost all food trucks oper
ate in multiple counties,” said
Tony Harrison, board president
of the Food Truck Association
of Georgia. “That means multi
ple permits and fees. It’s just
insane.”
Under House Bill 1443,
which members of the General
Assembly passed unanimously
last March, food truck opera
tors need only notify county
health departments when they
open for business in their com
munities.
“We do not have to go
through all the paperwork and
fees,” Harrison said. “We’ve
already seen an increase in
food trucks popping up before
the law has even taken effect.”
While the tax credit bills
technically became effective
last summer, they don’t really
become reality until New
Year’s Day, the beginning of
the tax year.
Three of the measures create
new income tax credits.
House Bill 424 will provide
a tax credit to Georgia taxpay
ers who contribute to nonprofit
organizations that help foster
children about to age out of the
foster care system. More than
700 young men and women
age out of the system each
year.
Senate Bill 361, which was
championed by Lt. Gov. Geoff
Duncan, will provide a dollar-
for-dollar income tax credit on
contributions to public safety
initiatives in the taxpayer’s
community. Law enforcement
agencies will be able to use the
money for police officer salary
supplements, to purchase or
maintain department equip
ment and/or to establish or
maintain a co-responder pro
gram.
Senate Bill 87, the Jack Hill
Veterans’ Act, honors the late
state Sen. Jack Hill of
Reidsville, who died in 2020. It
provides income tax credits in
exchange for contributions to
scholarships for service-dis
abled veterans through the
Technical College System of
Georgia Foundation.
The General Assembly also
expanded Georgia’s rural hos
pital tax credit through House
Bill 1041, which increases the
annual statewide cap on the
credit from $60 million to $75
million. Rural hospital admin
istrators and the program’s leg
islative supporters originally
sought to raise the cap to $100
million but were forced to set
tle for the lower figure.
Fiscal conservatives in the
General Assembly have
launched efforts in recent years
to bring closer scrutiny to
Georgia’s tax credits to ensure
they’re worth the hit to state
tax revenues.
But tax credits that incentiv-
ize taxpayers to contribute
toward popular causes that
need financial help have tended
to survive unscathed, said Kyle
Wingfield, president and CEO
of the Georgia Public Policy
Foundation.
“There don’t seem to be a
whole lot of problems with
them,” Wingfield said.
Another bill that will take
effect on Sunday, Senate Bill
332, also known as the Inform
Consumers Act, is aimed at
preventing criminals from sell
ing goods stolen from retail
stores on any online marketing
platform. It establishes finan
cial and contact information
requirements for high-volume
sellers to online marketplaces
and requires such platforms to
establish an option for con
sumers to report suspicious
activity.
“Here in Georgia, we will do
everything possible to curb
crime and make life difficult
for those who break the law,”
Gov. Brian Kemp said last May
as he signed the bill. “We’re
dealing another blow to the
organized gangs that steal from
Georgia shops and stores by
making it much harder for
them to profit from their
heists.”
This story is available
through a news partnership
with Capitol Beat News
Service, a project of the
Georgia Press Educational
Foundation.
