Mom Sending Super Soakers to Marines

Posted: June 3, 2009 10:23 PM

Updated: June 3, 2009 10:55 PM


A Staunton mom, Kim Smith, is starting a collection to send Super Soaker water guns to as many Marines as she can. Her son is one of them. He's now serving on his third tour of duty in Iraq since 2007.

Smith is a mom on a mission for her son and his unit of Marines.

"They all call me 'mom'. You know, you have one, you have a bunch," Smith said.

Smith keeps in touch with her son, Marine Corporal Chris Bryant, online often.

"You don't know what to expect and you worry," Smith said."It's awful."

To make things a little better and help them beat the heat, Kim sent Chris a Super Soaker water gun back on his first tour in Iraq in 2007. One wasn't enough.

"While he was talking to me there were kids, other Marines, in the background going 'well, I want one, too, Mom'," Smith said.

She collected cash around her office including $700 in just one day. Smith used that to send 40 water guns to Chris and his fellow marines.

"They sent me pictures of them goofing off and playing with them looking all serious like they're real guns," said Smith. "They loved it!"

This time around, Chris is with a different unit.

"He said, 'I want you to do the water gun thing again'," Smith said. "And I said, okay, sure."

Kim started out on Facebook by posting a quick status update about her new mission.

"I thought, well, I'll just put a little comment on my Facebook page and let those people know I'm doing it," Smith said.

Smith's Facebook and real life friend Niki Kline read it. She and her co-workers at Kline & Co. Real Estate are collecting cash to help Smith buy more water guns.

"It's not a care package, and it's not cookies," Kline said. "This is something that jumped out at me like, wow, this is fun, they need that."

Kline forwarded "Operation: Super Soaker" to her Facebook friends.

"They've all, in turn, put it on their Facebook pages, so it'll network through their friends," Smith said. "It's amazing."

Smith is adding friends online all the time. She hopes, with their help, the new group of Marines who call her "mom" can cool down in a war zone.

"I don't even have a limit," Smith said. "There's so many kids over there. I want to send as many as I can."

Smith will collect donations until June 12. One of her Facebook friends from Texas owns a hobby shop and hopes to get the water guns at a discount rate.

Reported by Matt Talhelm

Ellie