Monday, July 07, 2003

WANT TO MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE FOR SOLDIERS?

America Supporting Americans can help communities arrange "adoptions" of military units.

Read up on America Supporting Americans. I've been around the Army in some capacity for 27 years...yet I never knew about this organization until today.
America Supporting Americans, or ASA, is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization was founded in 1968. It's mission is to link American military units based on U.S. soil or deployed world-wide with American communities who want to show their support.

Our mission is well stated… ASA creates a “sail filled by the emotional wind from millions of Americans, and supported by the personal connections between units and communities. This sail carries members of the American military with personally felt assurance of support from the American people as they perform their often-dangerous duties..

Three things have, by far, the greatest positive impact on the morale of any soldier: Food, Pay, and Mail. Which is at the top of the list? Mail. Words from home. A simple story of the family cat caught up a tree, or a little sister’s making the cheerleading squad is all it takes to remind a soldier that there is a reason they face the hardships that come from serving this country.

“It’s not like being home with your family. You can’t hide Easter eggs in a land-mine field.” Stated one soldier serving in the l0th Mountain Division in Afghanistan.

That soldier when on to say he’s missed Christmas, New Years and about a year worth of holidays, of course it was lonely to be away from America on the holidays but you know you’re there for a reason!”

I would say this soldier understands “service to the greater”

Their website is here.

UPDATE: Read about a small Wyoming town adopting a Marine unit almost as big as the town iteself!


Marine Lance Cpl. Clayton Colman could well become one of the most popular men in his unit, thanks to the folks in his hometown of Medicine Bow.

Town officials in April formally "adopted" Colman's unit -- Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment -- as part of the America Supporting Americans Adopt-A-Unit program.

Wednesday night, about a dozen Medicine Bow residents gathered in the Village Square to discuss "what the guys would like to have and how we're going to do it," according to Pat Paules, who is on the City Council.

She said the unit, based in Twentynine Palms, Calif., has 180 men and a commanding officer.

Medicine Bow, meanwhile, has a population of 274, "so it's kind of like each person adopting a guy," Paules said.

The town is one of 45 cities in 18 states, and the first in Wyoming, to adopt a unit through the program.

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