A way to help out
By Perry Pearson
Ravalli Republic newspaper in Hamilton, Montana
March 21, 2006

When I was in college, struggling to find myself and a major, as students in their late teens and early 20s often do, I gave serious consideration to joining the military.
I even went so far as to drive to an Army recruiting center. But I didn’t get out of my car and walk in the door. I decided instead to go to class the next day. Eventually I chose to major in journalism and pursue employment in that field.
I did have several close friends go into the military. One even became an Army Ranger/paratrooper who served some pretty intense time in the war-torn country of Bosnia during the 1990s.
Another friend is currently serving in the green zone of Baghdad, Iraq.
Working for the last few years as a newspaper reporter in Alabama, I also
listened first-hand to many military men and women recount their time in
Afghanistan or Iraq. Some were involved in armed conflicts where people very much wanted to kill them.
I vividly remember one soldier I met from a rural county who had recently returned to Alabama from Iraq. I interviewed the soldier, not quite 20, and his parents in their home. The soldier was smoking cigarettes like crazy and his mother said he did not sleep well. Her jittery son would think someone was about to kill him if he heard the slightest sound out of the ordinary. I learned that he was in counseling.
That is when I started getting a little bit of a guilty feeling that I, as an American citizen, had not done what I could to help out. Regardless of your political affiliation or feelings on the current conflicts our country is involved in, I think there is absolutely nothing wrong with letting the troops know we care.
So in 2006 - almost five years after Sept. 11, and almost three years after Baghdad fell - I finally got involved. As I was driving home from work one recent night, I heard a public service advertisement on the radio about a website called AmericaSupportsYou.mil. It’s a clearinghouse of information detailing how to get involved in supporting our troops.
On that site, I found a link to troopcarepackage.com. There I learned about the quest of Angel Ramsey, a 24-year-old Morrisdale, Penn. woman. More than a year ago, she decided to start her website after reading a thank you letter that was sent to her place of work from a woman’s son who was in Iraq.
“He was so grateful to receive a gift from home, but also said that he shared the items with other soldiers because most of them don’t get packages,” Ramsey wrote on her website. “I wanted to change that. I wanted to do something to help.”
Many people, she said, wanted to help out too but didn’t know how. So she started the website to “connect us with them.”
Everyday, she searches online for deployed troops and then she writes to them to obtain their mailing addresses. The word quickly got out about her site, so now she also gets e-mails from family members of troops or troops themselves who give her addresses. Then, when someone like me finds her website, she has a name and address ready.
My wife and I were given the name of an Army soldier who is in the 10th Mountain Division, 3-71 Calvary, 3rd Initial Brigade Combat Team. The New Jersey man is serving in Afghanistan and, according to Ramsey in a recent e-mail to me, has parents who are having some financial problems who can’t do much to help right now.
That soldier’s care package - filled with beef jerky, snacks, canned food, magazines, and games - was sent off last Saturday.
Ramsey said that even just getting a letter makes a big difference in their day.
“I just wanted to do something to show them that people back here in the states didn’t forget about them,” she said.
Since October of last year, she has matched up more than 1,000 troops with a sponsor. Each day, she gets an average of 20 e-mails.
Many requests to sponsor someone come from schools, churches, and Girl Scout/Boy Scout troops. The effort has gone over so well, she said, that one female soldier based overseas passed a hat around her base and collected $100 to help pay for shipping costs to keep the packages coming.
“She just wanted to help out others because she understood how important it was to receive letters and packages.”

Reporter Perry Pearson can be reached at 363-3300 or
ppearson@ravallirepublic.com