Monday, July 23, 2007

An amazing thing about blogging, and this Toys for Troops project, is the connections and friends I have made. I'm constantly amazed at who manages to find me. I wrote in May, about meeting these two soldiers:


Jessup, I noted, is on the right. I had asked him, that day, "Does your mother still cry?" It was not long before word got around to Jessup's Mother, that I'd written about, and put her son's photograph on my blog. Her name is Kathy Wallig. She wrote to me, then:
...Joel is absolutely right. I still cry. He's been to Kuwait and Germany and many of his friends were in the unit that came home from Iraq a year ago. I cry every time I see a soldier or anyone in uniform. I cry when I see flags flying. I cry when I see news reports about a deployment and the mothers and fathers and wives and husbands and children are waving flags and crying out every bit of tear they have...and then some. I cry when I hear the National Anthem...
She is also, of course, a soldier's Mother, and it's becoming more and more clear to me that a lot of our emotions are universal. I'm sure that soldier's father's cry over these things also. Absolutely sure of it.

Also universal is the desire to do anything that helps out, to make a difference in any of Our Boy's lives. It came as no surprise to me, then, that Kathy e-mailed me last week, asking me for a soldier's name; she had beanies, baby! And chapstick and socks and other sundry care-package items.

Here's her cute little doogie, Beau, assisting with the packing:

And Donna, at the Urbana post office, ringing up the package:

Her box, to Sgt. Robert Morris, who serves in the same company as Brian, is on its way!

More connections are being made, more lives are being touched every single day.

I'm amazed, daily, and thank everyone reading here, once again. Keep coming back, there's more to come!