about that adopt a soldier thing...

I was really interested in the Adopt a Soldier program I read about in the newspaper recently, and wrote to get more info. The website is www.adoptasoldier3id.com, if you want to pursue, and find someone you can write to encourage and support while they are deployed in Afghanistan. They All need some of that, along with any sort of surprises you would like to send in goodie boxes: the flat rate box you can get at the post office and fill with granola bars, sanitizer bottles, anything you think someone living in the dirt/sand in a foreign country could use to make their lives a little easier. One of the things I notice they would like is whet stones to sharpen knives: everyone has a knife, and no one has a knife sharpener.

As it turned out, I found someone who is deployed, and connected to friendly neighbors: the 1st Lt.'s parents are a military retiree family. A sweet couple down the street, just two blocks away has a daughter in the war zone. She will be there until some time in the summer. When I saw the parents shopping recently, I asked if they would send me her address.  I knew she had been deployed last year, and would write her occasionally. notes and cards that would probably be trite, filled with mundane trivia, but still provide some welcomed mail for her to open and read, a temporary distraction from daily activities. Got the address, and discover that the 1st Lt. I am writing is attached to the Third Infantry Division, which is the group mentioned in the above web address. I think they are based in Ft. Stewart, just southwest of Savannah.

I already have a letter ready to mail. And will continue to write, thinking of getting my friendly little community group that meets on Wednesday nights to help me fill a box with things that people stuck in a war zone would find useful when they can't just run to Wallyworld or Walgreens down on the corner for a quick little shopping adventure. As interesting as going to the just-a-buck store and filling a shoe box to send to a deserving child at Christmas.

If you want to read something that will bring tears to your eyes, I will send you a copy of the article I read in the paper weeks ago, titled 'It was the worst year of my life' by Carol Megathlin, who lives in Savannah, and reported on the program. The title references how lonely it can be thousands of miles from home, and half way around the world distance from familiar faces. Without family support or the conveniences we all take for granted. Isolated, forced to be hyper-vigilant every waking moment, living in constant fear. You'll be desperately wanting to write, provide encouragement for some far away soldier to write