thedrifter
11-24-05, 06:42 AM
For troops, `a piece of home'
Volunteers stay busy packing boxes filled with beef jerky, books and other treats for forces in the Mideast
By Andrew L. Wang
Tribune staff reporter
Published November 24, 2005
Debi Rickert knows the taste of home that U.S. troops abroad miss the most: beef jerky.
"It was the first thing they asked for," said the head of the Illinois chapter of Operation Support Our Troops. "We go through it like that."
But Rickert and a team of about 50 helpers put a lot more than dried meat products into the 20-pound care packages they send to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Weaving their way one recent morning among pallets of peanut butter crackers, crates of powdered drink mix, stacks of books and magazines and mounds of toilet paper, a half-dozen mothers of military personnel stuffed cardboard boxes and, with a screech of plastic packing tape, sealed the lids.
They affixed an address label to each, weighed and metered them and stacked them neatly in a corner of the warehouse in Lisle, ready for mail trucks to take them away.
The things "we would think of as hokey, [troops] value," said Heather Klein, 47, clutching packages of dry-roasted peanuts. "It's just a piece of home."
The Naperville mother said her son Daniel, a Marine combat photographer, will soon be shipping out for his second tour in Iraq.
The chapter has sent 4,343 care packages this year and more than 7,000 since Rickert started packing boxes in her Naperville home about three years ago.
The mother of three heard about the national non-profit group of the same name in late 2002, when her son Dan was a first-year cadet at the U.S. Military Academy. She was joined by Joanne Bradna, a friend from church whose son Trevor graduated from West Point in 2001 then departed for Iraq.
The chapter, which began in Rickert's living room, now also uses the Lisle warehouse and two other packing locations. Around the holidays, Rickert said, the volunteers step up their output, mailing about 120 boxes a week, compared with the 70 packages they send during other weeks of the year.The names of servicemen and women to whom the group sends packages come mostly from the national organization, which was started in Rhode Island shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, by the mother of a West Point graduate who was fighting in Afghanistan.But many names also come by word of mouth.
Occasionally a letter arrives from a soldier who has received a package and asks that boxes be sent to his buddies. Even the postal worker who picks up the packages for shipping requested one for his nephew in Iraq, Rickert said.
Many troops need shaving cream, soap and toothpaste, Rickert said. Others want snacks, phone cards or puzzle books. Beef jerky is popular, she said, because it's an alternative to the carbohydrate-heavy military rations they eat while away from base.
Everything sent out is donated, Rickert said, and the money the group receives goes to pay for postage. Community groups and schools hold collection drives and local businesses have contributed as well, she said. A Vietnam War veteran donated the use of the Lisle warehouse.
Donations are still being accepted for holiday packages, Rickert said. Those who wish to give should visit the organization's Web site, www.osotil.org, for more information.
Volunteers pack by carrying boxes along tables loaded with bins of items and filling them as they go.
Packages are only sent to servicemen and women for whom they have been specifically requested. For security reasons, only volunteers with a family member in the military are allowed to pack boxes."It's a way for us to keep control over who's coming in and packing the boxes," Rickert said. "If someone's not a family member, we have plenty of other volunteer opportunities."
The boxes usually take about three weeks to arrive overseas, she said.
Rickert said she has eight binders full of letters from troops--handwritten and typed, on frayed sheets of lined notebook paper and official letterhead, from enlisted men and women and officers--thanking the group for the care packages.
Dave Szablewski, 55, a Naperville firefighter and master gunnery sergeant in the Marine Reserve who did two tours of duty in Iraq, received several packages sent to him from the Illinois chapter and other regional chapters.
"It was something you had to pass out to your fellow Marines because there's so much in there you can't use it all yourself," he said. "It felt like, wow, there are people back there thinking about us and it's not just our family."
For many of the volunteers, filling boxes at the warehouse is a form of therapy.
When her son was in Iraq, "it was really helpful to be with other parents ... parents who know what it's like," Bradna said. For her, the letters and e-mails from servicemen and women in the field are well worth her time and effort.
"It's humbling that they're thanking us," Bradna said. "We're like, we want to thank you. That's why we're doing this."
alwang@tribune.com
Ellie
Volunteers stay busy packing boxes filled with beef jerky, books and other treats for forces in the Mideast
By Andrew L. Wang
Tribune staff reporter
Published November 24, 2005
Debi Rickert knows the taste of home that U.S. troops abroad miss the most: beef jerky.
"It was the first thing they asked for," said the head of the Illinois chapter of Operation Support Our Troops. "We go through it like that."
But Rickert and a team of about 50 helpers put a lot more than dried meat products into the 20-pound care packages they send to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Weaving their way one recent morning among pallets of peanut butter crackers, crates of powdered drink mix, stacks of books and magazines and mounds of toilet paper, a half-dozen mothers of military personnel stuffed cardboard boxes and, with a screech of plastic packing tape, sealed the lids.
They affixed an address label to each, weighed and metered them and stacked them neatly in a corner of the warehouse in Lisle, ready for mail trucks to take them away.
The things "we would think of as hokey, [troops] value," said Heather Klein, 47, clutching packages of dry-roasted peanuts. "It's just a piece of home."
The Naperville mother said her son Daniel, a Marine combat photographer, will soon be shipping out for his second tour in Iraq.
The chapter has sent 4,343 care packages this year and more than 7,000 since Rickert started packing boxes in her Naperville home about three years ago.
The mother of three heard about the national non-profit group of the same name in late 2002, when her son Dan was a first-year cadet at the U.S. Military Academy. She was joined by Joanne Bradna, a friend from church whose son Trevor graduated from West Point in 2001 then departed for Iraq.
The chapter, which began in Rickert's living room, now also uses the Lisle warehouse and two other packing locations. Around the holidays, Rickert said, the volunteers step up their output, mailing about 120 boxes a week, compared with the 70 packages they send during other weeks of the year.The names of servicemen and women to whom the group sends packages come mostly from the national organization, which was started in Rhode Island shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, by the mother of a West Point graduate who was fighting in Afghanistan.But many names also come by word of mouth.
Occasionally a letter arrives from a soldier who has received a package and asks that boxes be sent to his buddies. Even the postal worker who picks up the packages for shipping requested one for his nephew in Iraq, Rickert said.
Many troops need shaving cream, soap and toothpaste, Rickert said. Others want snacks, phone cards or puzzle books. Beef jerky is popular, she said, because it's an alternative to the carbohydrate-heavy military rations they eat while away from base.
Everything sent out is donated, Rickert said, and the money the group receives goes to pay for postage. Community groups and schools hold collection drives and local businesses have contributed as well, she said. A Vietnam War veteran donated the use of the Lisle warehouse.
Donations are still being accepted for holiday packages, Rickert said. Those who wish to give should visit the organization's Web site, www.osotil.org, for more information.
Volunteers pack by carrying boxes along tables loaded with bins of items and filling them as they go.
Packages are only sent to servicemen and women for whom they have been specifically requested. For security reasons, only volunteers with a family member in the military are allowed to pack boxes."It's a way for us to keep control over who's coming in and packing the boxes," Rickert said. "If someone's not a family member, we have plenty of other volunteer opportunities."
The boxes usually take about three weeks to arrive overseas, she said.
Rickert said she has eight binders full of letters from troops--handwritten and typed, on frayed sheets of lined notebook paper and official letterhead, from enlisted men and women and officers--thanking the group for the care packages.
Dave Szablewski, 55, a Naperville firefighter and master gunnery sergeant in the Marine Reserve who did two tours of duty in Iraq, received several packages sent to him from the Illinois chapter and other regional chapters.
"It was something you had to pass out to your fellow Marines because there's so much in there you can't use it all yourself," he said. "It felt like, wow, there are people back there thinking about us and it's not just our family."
For many of the volunteers, filling boxes at the warehouse is a form of therapy.
When her son was in Iraq, "it was really helpful to be with other parents ... parents who know what it's like," Bradna said. For her, the letters and e-mails from servicemen and women in the field are well worth her time and effort.
"It's humbling that they're thanking us," Bradna said. "We're like, we want to thank you. That's why we're doing this."
alwang@tribune.com
Ellie