SENDING LETTERS, CARDS AND

                                     CARE PACKAGES TO OUR SOLDIERS OVERSEAS  

"11/24/05  This little letter of thanks cannot possibly express the gratitude for all you and

your Angels have done.  Your thoughts, prayers, concerns, words and gifts are greatly

appreciated!  You have brought smiles to many soldiers' faces.  I wish there was more we could

do to show our thanks for your help after our fire.  For now, all we can say is THANK YOU!

Angie"   

What began as a small volunteer effort on my part has mushroomed into a bigger and bigger system of support for our soldiers.  I am so proud of the people that have helped me because I couldn’t have done it without them.

Let me take you back in time and tell you how it all began.  I guess you could say volunteering runs in my family.  My sister attributes this to our mother.  Our mom was always busy with some purpose or another while we were growing up, even having worked many hours for the Red Cross.  Our grandmother, too a strong woman, was always heading up some committee at church and her strong work ethic must’ve filtered down.  I do my share of volunteering.  I’ve many times been team mom, pie coordinator, on committees at school, teen advisory board at church, secretary, treasurer and cookie chairman for scouts, (you get the picture), and currently I am a Nutrition Education Volunteer for Marion County.  While on a message board on the internet one evening, I saw a post from a lieutenant in Iraq.  I innocently wrote to him and asked if he had any soldiers that received little or no mail.  (My dad served two tours in Vietnam and I remember him telling me the stories of the soldiers that never heard their name called during mail call and how sad it was.)  This lieutenant replied that as a matter of fact there was and he would assemble a list for me.  I thought he would send me 10 or 15 names.  He sent 72 names to me!

I started writing to each soldier and sending a small snack package with each of my letters.  I would only send about six packages a week because I soon found that the postage was the most costly part of the entire operation.  I worked hard to get it down to a science, finding that if I kept the package less than 13 ounces, the postage was more manageable.  I also took advantage of the flat rate envelopes and stuffed them as full as I possibly could.

 Word spread of my little undertaking.  I had sergeants and captains writing to me asking if I could adopt two soldiers here, another two or three soldiers there.  Also being the glutton that I am, I signed up with organizations I searched out on the internet.  I passed the telephone interviews and soon added more soldiers and veterans to my effort.

My sister was the first angel to help me.  She wrote a two-page letter to one of my soldiers that was having a particularly hard time.  It was also his birthday so I tucked the letter she wrote into a box of goodies and off it went!  Mrs. Kathleen at the post office was the second angel to help me.  She picked up my postage tab one day with money from her own pocket.  I was touched by her generosity.  Not long ago she again personally paid for my postage.  What a generous and considerate person she is.  Not only is she considerate of the soldiers, she is considerate of me.  Also she would tell me “what goes around comes around”, and I am beginning to see evidence of this.  Mrs. Theresa at the post office gave me a huge bag full of ready-to-eat tuna, chicken, sloppy joe packets and sardines, worth at least $40.00 or more.  The soldiers love these sorts of things.  She is my third angel.

Operation Affirmative is named for my father.  He made a career out of the Army, and yes I am an Army brat.  If you asked my father something that he agreed to it was “affirmative”, but if you asked something such as to stay out an hour later, it was a hearty “negatory”!  Affirmative translates to positive and what could be more positive than helping our soldiers?  I miss my father.  He passed away on March 20, 2003.  My mother died less than three months earlier on December 28, 2002 (their 51^st wedding anniversary).  This project is in their honor.

Calling all angels…  If you or someone you know wants to help our young men and women overseas, I encourage you to help me with my project.  Of course my greatest need is money for postage.  I will provide you with a receipt for your donation.   I will also keep you updated with a newsletter and provide copies of letters from the soldiers.

 At this time, I would like to share some of their words:

One letter comes from a young lady who lost both of her parents.  She has some sisters, but when the parents died, she says the sisters drifted apart and don’t have much to do with each other.  She is very lonely and talks of how letters brighten her days.

One young man misses his young family so much.  He tries to call them as often as he can, so I sent a phone card to him and he was overjoyed!  They can only use AT&T phone cards but Sam’s has these for a very affordable price.

An older soldier says the only family he has is his grown children who he rarely hears from.  I promise to write to him often, sharing news of my family and hoping that will somehow soften the hurt he feels.

One young man complains about being hungry at night because it’s the first time he’s been away from home and he’s used to eating snacks at night.  I loaded him up.

One soldier shares the story of how surprised he was to get a letter because he never gets mail.  He said he was certain there was a mistake when his name was called, but sure enough the letter and snack package was for him.  This makes me want to write to him everyday!

Of course I have a family to take care of and other things to do.  But I think we can all find the time to write a letter and maybe donate a few bucks for postage.  Remember what Mrs. Kathleen says?  “What goes around comes around”.  I believe it.