He Made My Day

Glancing over my email deciding where to start this morning, I spotted a name I didn't recognize.  The first name, Jason, is familiar but I was pretty sure this Jason's last name isn't the same as the Jason (aka 13 Stoploss) I follow on Rucksack to Backpack.  


So.  What to do?  Delete it?  Look up Jason's blog to be sure of his last name? Or roll the dice?  The subject line said "Thank you" - no reason for 13 Stoploss to be thanking me. It's probably spam. But, in a move very unlike me, I decided to open the email praying I wasn't going to be sorry.


To my delight it was indeed a genuine thank you from a soldier who'd received a Soldiers Angels box from me.  I gotta tell you, in all the years I've been sending things only three people have ever thanked me.  One, a young female sailor stationed on USS Bridge who sent a cool postcard from Bahrain, a female medic stationed in Iraq, and the soldier in Afghanistan today. I get chills all over again just writing about it.


Before I joined Soldiers Angels everything I did was totally anonymous - but then came the time we couldn't mail things to "any soldier" anymore and SA was just the ticket. 

I'm guessing here but I'd bet my almost-bottom-dollar most soldiers angels are connected with the military in one way or another.  We wear our Soldiers Angels t-shirts (red on Friday) carry our laptops in SA satchels, put bumper stickers and magnets on our cars, and talk up SA to every even-slightly interested person we come across. Sometimes we join the Patriot Guard at funerals or homecoming ceremonies.

Oh, and we send a letter a week and a package a month to the soldier we've adopted thru SA. We don't expect to hear back from them, they're at war - we get that. That's why the occasional acknowledgement means so much.


My first adopted soldier was stationed at LSA Anaconda in Iraq. Anaconda was the go-to place for guys out in the FOB's for shopping and it had more fast food joints than the town I live in so he didn't need junk food, or socks, or trinkets to pass out to kids. He just needed a word now and then. 

My last adopted soldier, the female medic, landed in a primo spot right off the bat and even had her own room. I expect 
the shopping there was pretty good too, tho she didn't mention it. But then the Army did what it does best and sent her to a COP where she was miserable.
Only heard from her a couple of times after that. I read on  
military.com that some soldiers from her unit there were killed
but I doubt she was one of the KIA's because she said she 
pretty much stayed on the COP. She should've rotated back last month, 
I hope she's back in college......