While Memorial Day is traditionally a time to celebrate those who have given their lives in military service to the United States, it only makes sense to treat it as an opportunity to honor the current troops for their dedication and sacrifices.
There are many options for supporting the troops and their families. Here are just a few of them.
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Send them your paperbacks and magazines:
If you have paperback books or magazines around the house, consider sending them to the troops. Visit the website Give Books or Operation Paperback to learn where to send your items and any other information you might need to know to participate.
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Volunteer with your local USO location:
There are many opportunities to assist the USO as a volunteer. To find the nearest USO location and learn how you can volunteer, visit the USO website at the following link: USO.
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Send a care package:
There are easily hundreds of groups out there offering to help you send care packages to deployed soliders.
Here are just a few of the options:
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Adopt a troop or unit:
Adopt a Platoon is one group that facilitates adoption of individual soldiers and groups and promotes other special projects to meet pressing needs.
To adopt a troop, you must make the committment to send him or her one card or letter a week and at least one care package a month. You can adopt up to four troops. There are programs that allow companies, religious organizations and civic groups to adopt entire units of soldiers.
You can also offer one-time support for holidays or other special campaigns promoted by Adopt a Platoon. Right now the group is asking for donations of sunscreen, bug spray, anti-itch cream and other related items as part of its Don’t Bug Me summer campaign.
You can find more information about all of these options at the following link: Adopt a Platoon.
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Donate to the American Legion American Legacy Scholarship Fund:
This program provides college scholarships to the children of servicemembers killed in service to our country on or after Sept. 11, 2001. More information is available at this link: American Legacy Scholarship.
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Support Fisher House:
Fisher House provides a place to stay for the family members of sick or injured troops being treated at military and VA hospitals all across the U.S. I don’t need to tell you how stressful it is to have a sick or injured loved one, so this is a great way for us to make that time a little easier for their families. Visit the following link for more information: Fisher House.
Regardless of your political affiliation or thoughts about the our involvement in Iraq, I think we can all agree that we support our troops and they deserve to be reminded that we care about them.
If you have other ideas or suggestions for what to include in care pacakges, please share them in the comments.
Lawyerlee
I’m the wife of a deployed soldier and I can tell you 2 precious commodities over there: AAFES/NEX/CGEX giftcards and AT&T phonecards.
Go to this website (http://www.certifichecks.com/cgi-bin/donation.pl?rm=display&ID=8&sessionid=tqng6767ff16bc16&page=aafes_l52598) “Gifts from the Homefront” Certificates are redeemable by Authorized Patrons of the Army & Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES), the Navy Exchange (NEX) and the Coast Guard Exchange. The certificates are redeemable at all locations around the world including deployed areas.
Troops overseas can’t use just any old calling card. AT&T Global Prepaid Calling Cards are the only ones (that I am aware of) that they can use and typically, exchanges over there run out of them quickly when they get them. SO, send a Soldier, Sailor or Marine a calling card. Go to this link for more info: https://thor.aafes.com/scs/default.aspx
Thanks for supporting our troops and their families! Have a wonderful Memorial Day Weekend!