FLEA COLLARS

We asked them for a year of their lives. We asked them to leave their families and go to a country where the temperature is even hotter than it is here, where there are no swimming pools, shopping malls or air-conditioned offices. We asked them to function without restaurants or bars, without movie theaters or supermarkets. We asked them to do their jobs month after month, knowing that among the people they had gone to help are some who would like to kill them. That is what we asked of them, and that is what they've done.

In return, what they ask of us is . . . flea collars.

"I know it sounds odd," said Maj. Eileen Bienz, public affairs officer for the Arizona National Guard, "but the soldiers attach the flea collars to the legs of their cots to keep the sand fleas off of them at night."...

We asked them to go, and they went. For some, like the 855th Military Police Company out of Phoenix, which wound up deployed about 30 miles north of Baghdad, the flea collars help. The Arizona National Guard's family assistance center puts together packages to mail to service people in remote locations. Among the things soldiers ask for are batteries, phone cards, foot powder and drink mixes. The packages themselves cost $20 to mail, which can be tough on families already struggling to get by on an income that doesn't match what the soldier was making as a civilian. While the president continues to say that major operations have ended, there still are more than 1,400 Arizona National Guard men and women deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places. Along with 1,150 Arizona military reserve members.