E-mail
PrintIt was very heart-warming how the news media showed the troops in Iraq having a traditional Christmas dinner. It was a sweet photo-op for the supporters of this war. However, let me tell you about other soldiers out there.
Those soldiers were stationed at a camp where they have electricity, hot and cold running water, heat, real beds, TVs and computers and even McDonald’s.
My 20-year-old nephew is a Marine. He’s ‘stationed’ out in the field where their living quarters are the cargo containers that are parachuted in with supplies. They have no heat or soft bed. In fact, it’s now getting to 40 degrees at night and my nephew is asking for heavy socks and gloves because he’s too cold to sleep. Oh, they do have a microwave to heat up their food. My nephew recently requested that he not be sent sweets anymore. Why? The food they’re given is not near enough for their appetites so they request healthier snacks from home to fill them up — Ramen noodles, mac and cheese singles, jerky, etc. Oh yeah, for them, Christmas dinner was MREs and snacks.
So, like I said, stories about soldiers having traditional Christmas dinners are very sweet and give people the warm fuzzies. But the reality is that many of them have not had the luxury and must fight just to stay alive as well as the insurgents!
I’m told that the Army receives a lot of the ‘niceties’ and the Marines get very little. Despite that, my nephew is proud to be a Marine and would not consider a different military service. And we are very proud of him!
Comments
For those locally wanting to help out Marines, you can visit MarineParents.com for more information on their Care Package Project. They ship out approximately 1100 care packages five times a year to Marines serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is a national organization headquartered right here in Columbia. The last pack day was this past Saturday (January 5) and the next date is March 15. You can also volunteer weekly on Thursdays to help sort donations that come in from across the country.