Remember those cards?

During Jack Bauer's deployment, I spent quite a bit of time writing cards to our wounded troops at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center for Soldiers' Angels Germany. Now, another card writing opportunity has come along that I think you all might be interested in.

"Holiday Mail for Heroes" to Deliver One Million Cards to Service Members and Families

Red Cross, Pitney Bowes to Screen, Sort, Deliver Cards Before Holidays

WASHINGTON, November 11, 2008 - The American Red Cross and Pitney Bowes Inc. are teaming up to send holiday cards to service men and women in the United States and around the world. From Tuesday, November 11 until Wednesday, December 10, the public is invited to send holiday cards with their message of thanks and cheer to a special post office box. The Red Cross and Pitney Bowes will then screen cards for hazardous materials, sort and package the cards, and deliver them to military bases and hospitals, veteran’s hospitals, and other locations during the holidays. Watch the Holiday Mail for Heroes video.

Holiday Mail For Heroes continues the Red Cross tradition of service to the armed forces, which includes handling emergency communications that link service members with their families back home, providing access to financial assistance from the military aid societies, counseling, referral to community resources and assistance to veterans. Pitney Bowes is providing all screening, packaging and shipping at no charge, as well as providing thousands of volunteer hours from employees around the country.

“This opportunity is such a great way for the public to personally support the military and say a special thank you for their service this holiday season,” said Gail McGovern, Red Cross President and CEO. “I’m especially proud that the Red Cross is able to be a part of this effort, and I hope everyone will take the time to join us and send an extra card for the military.”

In 2007 Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. approached the Red Cross to distribute thousands of holiday cards coming to the facility for wounded troops. The Red Cross reached out to Pitney Bowes to turn the project into a larger opportunity that could reach members of the military at other facilities. In all, nearly 600,000 cards were screened for hazardous materials, sorted, and delivered in 2007.

“Pitney Bowes is proud to be working with the American Red Cross again to help Americans extend their well wishes and gratitude to the heroes who serve and protect our country,” said Jon Love, President of Pitney Bowes Government Solutions. “Last year’s program was a huge success and we look forward to working with the public to reach even more wounded service members and their families this holiday season to show appreciation and support.”

Holiday cards should be addressed and sent t

Holiday Mail For Heroes

P.O. Box 5456

Capitol Heights, MD 20791-5456

Please be sure to affix adequate postage. Cards must be received no later than December 10. Cards received after this date will be returned to senders. To help speed the sorting process and delivery of cards and notes before the holidays, mailers are encouraged to refrain from sending “care packages,” monetary gifts, using glitter or including any other inserts. For a full list of recommended guidelines and best practices, please visit: http://www.Redcross.org/holidaymail. Cards are also available to print out from the website, along with messages from Red Cross National Celebrity Cabinet Members Dr. Phil McGraw and Nancy O’Dell, co-anchor of Access Hollywood. You can also leave a message on the Red Cross Service to the Armed Forces Facebook Wall.

Valor-IT Needs Your Help

Soldiers' Angels has a great program that enables our military wounded to better communicate. Think about how much time we spend on the Internet, whether it is chatting with friends in gmail chat or updating our Facebook status or connecting with our family members scattered around the country or around the world. Now imagine that is all gone, or trying to have someone else do that connecting while trying to recover from wounds. A few days away from the computer and I am batty. It is hard to imagine how it must feel for our injured soldiers, marines, airmen, and sailors.

Project Valour-IT has stepped in to fill that void by providing voice-activated software to get our guys and gals back online. And they need our help. Even as budgets are tight, there is usually a few dollars to be spared. So consider foregoing that venti nonfat, extra foam, pumpkin spice latte for a few days and reach down and send those dollars to Project Valour-IT instead. If this out-of-work desperate job seeker can find a few bucks, maybe you can, too. I promise you'll feel better. So click on that little donate button above to make it happen.

Returning the favor

With 1,000 cards written to our wounded soldiers, I put my card writing days are on hold. But in the last 10 days I have received 2 e-mails from card recipients. That brings my total of responses received to 4.

I received the first response about 2 months ago while my parents were here. Once I figured out why this apparent stranger was writing to me I started to cry. After 11 months of writing with very little expectation of hearing back, someone took the time to shoot me an e-mail, just to say "thanks." I hope that is the same feeling soldiers get when they read my cards.

1,000

So that friendly competition where Jack Bauer was rushing to get home before I finished writing 1,000 cards for our wounded soldiers for Soldiers' Angels Germany. Well the competition is over. Jack Bauer made it home. But I had finished writing all the cards two days before. But we mailed 159 cards yesterday.

Running total: 1,000

Here's the link to the post that got me started. If you want more information on how to start your own letter/card writing campaign (or other volunteer opportunities), visit Soldiers' Angels Germany (look at the "Year-round Projects" in the right-hand column of links).

Thank you, AWTM, for making me aware of the incredible opportunity. And a HUGE THANK YOU to MaryAnn who dedicates countless hours to Soldiers' Angels making sure that no Soldier goes unloved. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Competition where losers are winners too

Jack Bauer and I have a friendly little competition going on. The kind of competition where we all win in the end. He is trying to get home before I reach my one stated goal of this deployment: to write 1,000 cards for Soldiers' Angels Germany.

I was on schedule to do this no problem until March became an insane month. And, well, life happened and card writing got pushed to the bottom of the list.

As of March 13, I had sent 841 cards to our wounded Soldiers. That means only 159 left to do. I started writing them again a few weeks ago. But picked up the pace dramatically last weekend when I cranked out 41; never made it to the post office though. So the cards piled up on my dining room table (glad to see the table is being used for something useful these days).

And now that Jack Bauer is much closer to being home, I thought I would just try to crank out as many cards as humanly possible. A great representation of the end of this marathon of a deployment and typical of me working best under pressure. Jack is going to try to get home as soon as humanly possible, but we don't really know when that will be. Maybe the faster I write, the sooner he will get home.

Well, I'd better be getting back to writing cards. I've got just 14 left to go. And I better prepare MaryAnn for the box she is about to get. :D

More cards

I sent 13 cards to Soldiers' Angels Germany for our wounded soldiers.

Running total: 841

Opening my eyes

Within the last month, I've spotted two very large tractor-trailers proudly designed for the Marines. The first time I saw one, I teared up with pride. I haven't been able to figure out what they are for. The one at the right here is not exactly like the ones I've seen, but you get the idea. A couple more pics can be found here.

Lately I've been noticing a lot more Army and Marine stickers on cars. I am sure they have been there all along, Maybe I couldn't see them before. Perhaps they didn't fit with my perspective that most people in this area don't support the military, aren't affected by the war, and/or don't care.

Whatever my thinking was, it is obviously changing. I think all it really took was opening my eyes without expectation for what I would see.

More cards

Sent out 15 cards to Soldiers' Angels Germany for our wounded soldiers.

Running total: 828

Cards

I sent 25 cards to SAG yesterday.

Running total: 813

And just another nice picture. :D

More cards

Sent 21 cards out to our wounded Soldiers in Germany through Soldiers' Angels Germany.

Running total: 788

Just thought that was a nice picture of Antonio Banderas. :D

Today is Memorial Day

Today is Memorial Day for Team Badger. Badger 6, Teflon Don, and Mel are all deeply affected by the deaths of Sergeant James Holtom, Sergeant Ross Clevenger, and Private First Class Raymond Werner one year ago.

Today may be a good day to visit our fellow bloggers.

Saturday Cards

The cards are continuing to go out to our wounded servicemembers through Soldiers' Angels Germany.

Sent out 16 yesterday.

Running total: 767

On Cards

I started writing cards for our wounded Soldiers in Germany (through Soldiers' Angels Germany) back in May 2007 after AWTM posted about the opportunity and the need. I was just reading back through some of those first few posts. I would have never thought I would have written this many cards. At one point I was hoping to send 200.

This got me thinking about the roles we play in one another's lives. I doubt AWTM would have thought she would have inspired someone to write this many cards and how much this has helped me. And in the other direction, I am sure my cards have been read by more than a few Soldiers. But the impact any of my words have, I don't know. I hope a butterfly or two has touched someone, made someone smile, lightened the mood, eased the pain, the loneliness, the disconnection if for just a moment.

I sent out 30 cards on Saturday.

Running total: 751

More cards

I sent off some cards for Soldiers' Angels Germany yesterday. I bundled them up on Friday. And today I can't seem to remember right off hand how many I sent and had to figure it out. I think there were 12.

Running total: 721

Cards for SAG

It seems that my card writing campaign is slowing down some what. But it is still going strong.

On Saturday I sent off 13 more cards for our wounded Soldiers at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center as part of Soldiers' Angels Germany's efforts to make sure "no Soldier goes unloved."

If you are unfamiliar with this wonderful organization and would like more information, please be sure to check out their website here. They have many year-round projects (on their website, scroll down a bit on the right-hand column), I am sure there is something there for everyone who is interested in helping out.

As for my own card campaign, I sent off card #700 in this last batch.

Running total: 709

Stepping Up

I rarely post about death and destruction in Iraq. There are plenty of place on the Internet to get that. But here I am, about to go to bed, when I came across this story: Three Iraqi Soldiers throwing themselves on a suicide bomber in Baghdad to subdue him. (via The Long War Journal)

I get so tired of hearing people around me say that the Iraqis aren't stepping up. When I tell them that they really don't know what they are talking about, they look at me as if I'd been sniffing some crazy glue or drinking the Kool-Aid.

I could go on and on about the unreported and underreported stories of the Iraqi security forces by the mainstream media, but what I recommend to anyone (and everyone) is to simply go to The Long War Journal, click here to read short updates on Iraq, click here to read feature articles on Iraq. Don't want to read so much? Try this article with several graphs depicting the decrease in violence in Iraq. Or try this article on the "Concerned Local Citizens" groups popping up all over Iraq; these are the local people organizing to secure their villages and neighborhoods, letting the bad guys know that violence is not welcome.

And, of course, if you like the information you got there for free, consider making a tax-deductible donation to PMI, the nonprofit organization that brings us this great information. The donation button is in the upper right hand corner of every page.

Thank you

I realized that the other day when I posted about the cards I last sent off to Soldiers' Angels Germany that I forgot to thank someone. Sarah had given me 28 cards while I was at SBL3. Those were the ones I sent off.

Thank you very much, Sarah. You chose some great cards.

(Excellent scarf, by the way! You are so talented.)

Phew! Just made the deadline

Yesterday afternoon, I headed to my post office to send off a few things. It never occurred to me that the post office might have closed early. I HAD to get an envelope in the mail, local taxes due. But that wasn't all I wanted to mail. So I had to head downtown, through the "bad" neighborhoods, to the central post office and hope and pray that it wasn't also closed. Fortunately, it was open but also closing early. I made it just in time.

In addition to the taxes, I mailed Jack Bauer a small care package: 5 lb. of coffee, hand cream, and two cute puppy calendars (Rottweilers and German Shepherds).

I also had some cards for Soldiers' Angels Germany. Another 28 cards of encouragement for our wounded Soldiers. For the year, the total cards I sent (there were maybe up to 15 or 20 that weren't written by me) comes to 696. Hmmm. That's kind of a lot.

I keep forgetting ...

All day I kept remembering that I forgot to post that I sent 30 cards to our wounded Soldiers off to Soldiers' Angels Germany. Yeah, I braved the post office on the busiest day of the year.

Running total: 668

How dumb can she be?

AWTM, what do you think of her now? She's in Iraq performing for our troops. ;-)

I think that Kellie Pickler puts on a good act as a dumb blonde.

On Dec. 8, Pickler visited Forward Operating Base Kalsu to lend her voice to help boost Soldier morale.

Pickler, whose visit was part of a six-day tour throughout Iraq, said she volunteered to perform at smaller bases like Kalsu that are often overlooked by performers.

“It is nice to come and bring a little bit of home to the Soldiers,” Pickler said.