In The News
Thank You from Iraq
Posted Nov. 17, 2007
I just wanted to drop you all a line and express my gratitude for the stocking I received today. I am doing my second tour in Iraq and am currently stationed at Balad AB / LSA Anaconda.
My unit is out of Northern Utah but I am from Texas originally. We are all munitions troops. We work with explosives basically - everything from bullets to the biggest bombs.
Thank you guys sooo much for the goodies. You don't know how much it means to hear thank you, or get an unexpected package in the mail. Thank you again.
Thank you,
SSgt Zack Casagranda
AMMO - I.Y.A.A.Y.A.S.!
Blazers Military Appreciation Night is Huge Success
Posted Nov. 14, 2007
- Our 3 collection barrels for the Coalition of Troop Support were filled to the rim with care package goodies.
- The Community Corner tables featuring Military service organizations received tons of traffic and interest from the over 450 service men and women and their families who were in attendance.
- Over 60 service members and their children had a chance to play on the court before the game.
- Over 150 showed up for our pre-game chat with Jerry Moss.
- The surprise on-screen video messages from soldiers to their families were awesome and touching.
- We had about 10 families in the stands who didn't know those messages were going to be there from their family member overseas. We were able to catch one of the surprise tribute families in their seats wiping away some tears.
- The US Army swear-in ceremony, concourse display and halftime basketball game were wonderful.
- 20 lucky children of military families got to high-five the players coming onto the court at halftime.
- The 30 troops on the court to be honored at the end of halftime loved it - it was great to see Martell Webster go down the line and give high-fives to them as they were coming on to the court.
Thanks for all of your help with this night! We appreciate the team effort on this! This one was truly a community effort internally and externally and we made good on honoring some very important men and women. The soldiers and families involved had a wonderful time and will take back some great memories! Check out these pictures!
Special Sale in November for Veterans and Families
Posted Oct. 5, 2007
CoTS would like to let everyone know that Finders Keepers Thriftshop will be having
a sale the entire month of November for Veterans and families in service. They are a
family owned thriftshop affiliated with Veterans Charities Inc. of Oregon for the
past 7 yrs. Usually they offer discounts to disabled Vets on every Monday of 30% off.
They decided that they would like to show their support by offering this 30% discount to
ALL active and non-active military persons, for the entire month of November!
Visit their website for more information or feel free to call 503-760-1676 or
email fkthriftshop@msn.com
Check them out! http://www.finderskeepersthriftshop.com
CD Sales Proceeds To Benefit Soldiers/Military Families
Posted Sept. 29, 2007
A part of the proceeds from the sale of the music CD "Safe 'N Sound In Watertown" will go to the NNY-Fort Drum Chapter of A.U.S.A., for the benefit of Fort Drum (NY) soldiers and their families. The ballad, "Safe 'N Sound In Watertown" honors Fort Drum troops and gives a sincere thanks for the protection of freedoms in America and around the world. Details regarding this endeavor can be found at: http://www.31stinfantry.org/431st_fort_drum.htm.
Lane Community College Opens Student Veterans Resource Center
Posted Sept. 29, 2007
Benjamin Hier wants to let everyone know how excited he is to announce that the Lane Community College "Student Veterans Resource Center" is now open. He would like to personally thank Mr. Bert Logan and Mrs. Darcy Woodke for all of their help in getting a center established at Lane. For more information about the center visit the LCC Flyer Page.
The Blues Power Revue sign tee shirts
Posted Sept. 17, 2007
Jake (Kenny Elhard, right) and Elwood (Mitch Reems, left) of The Blues Power Revue
featuring The New Blues Brothers sign tee shirts being sent in comfort kit packages to
U.S. troops serving overseas by The Coalition of Troop Support.
September 2007, Gladstone OR.
Pentagon fails to reimburse troops who bought own gear
Lolita C. Baldor
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- The Defense Department hasn't developed a plan to reimburse soldiers for equipment they've bought to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan despite requirements in a law passed last year, a senator says.
In a letter sent Wednesday to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., asked for details on the Pentagon's progress setting up the reimbursement program and questioned why it was not in place yet.
"Very simply, this is either negligence on their part, because they were not happy with this when it passed, or it's incompetence," Dodd said. "It's pretty outrageous when you have all their rhetoric about how much we care about our people in uniform."
The Pentagon had no immediate comment.
Soldiers serving in Iraq and their families have reported buying everything from higher-quality protective gear to armor for their Humvees, medical supplies and even global positioning devices.
In response to the complaints, Congress last year passed Dodd's amendment requiring the Pentagon to reimburse members of the armed services for the cost of any safety or health equipment that they bought or someone else bought on their behalf.
Under the law, the Defense Department had until Feb. 25 to develop regulations on the reimbursement, which is limited to $1,100 per item.
An Ode to America
Cornel Nistorescu
Evenimentulzilei ("The Daily Event")
We rarely get a chance to see another country's editorial about the USA.
Read this excerpt from a Romanian Newspaper. The article was written by Mr. Cornel Nistorescu and published under the title "C"ntarea Americii, meaning "Ode To America") in the Romanian newspaper Evenimentulzilei "The Daily Event" or "News of the Day".
~An Ode to America~
Why are Americans so united? They would not resemble one another even if you painted them all one color! They speak all the languages of the world and form an astonishing mixture of civilizations and religious beliefs. Still, the American tragedy turned three hundred million people into a hand put on the heart.
Nobody rushed to accuse the White House, the army, and the secret services that they are only a bunch of losers. Nobody rushed to empty their bank accounts. Nobody rushed out onto the streets nearby to gape about. The Americans volunteered to donate blood and to give a helping hand.
After the first moments of panic, they raised their flag over the smoking ruins, putting on T-shirts, caps and ties in the colors of the national flag. They placed flags on buildings and cars as if in every place and on every car a government official or the president was passing.
On every occasion, they started singing their traditional song: "God Bless America!" I watched the live broadcast and rerun after rerun for hours listening to the story of the guy who went down one hundred floors with a woman in a wheelchair without knowing who she was, or of the Californian hockey player, who gave his life fighting with the terrorists and prevented the plane from hitting a target that could have killed other hundreds or thousands of people.
How on earth were they able to respond united as one human being? Imperceptibly, with every word and musical note, the memory of some turned into a modern myth of tragic heroes. And with every phone call, millions and millions of dollars were put in a collection aimed at rewarding not a man or a family, but a spirit, which no money can buy.
What on earth can unite the Americans in such a way? Their land? Their galloping history? Their economic Power? Money? I tried for hours to find an answer, humming songs and murmuring phrases with the risk of sounding commonplace.
I thought things over, but I reached only one conclusion...Only freedom can work such miracles.
Good news from Iraq, Part 21
February 14, 2005
Note: Also available at the "Opinion Journal" and Winds of Change. As always, many thanks to James Taranto and Joe Katzman for their continuing support and to all of you who make this series possible through encouragement and publicity.
Mark Steyn, the joker in the conservative pundit deck, but also in many ways the shrewdest and the most insightful of the lot, wrote in the aftermath of the Iraqi poll:
Like a four-year-old child, the media were so distracted by bright colors and loud noises that they missed the real story. Set fire to a second-hand Nissan and they send a camera crew round to take pretty pictures of the big plume of smoke rising up in the sky.
But the seeds of a democratic culture are harder to spot.
Which is why many of those who for almost two years provided us with a steady diet of disaster and negativity out of Iraq were unprepared and quite clearly taken aback by the spectacle of majority of Iraqis defying the terrorists and insurgents to participate in by large a free and successful democratic election.
Steyn is right; the seeds of a democratic culture are harder to spot, particularly for the media that obsesses with reporting events (explosions, gunfights) as opposed to processes (reconstruction - physical, political, spiritual - of a country and society). The verdict on Iraq remains open. Only time will tell whether Saddam's former fiefdom will become a normal and successful state, perhaps the first Middle Eastern domino to fall for democratization and reform, or whether political and religious entropy will prevail to send Iraq down a spiral of theocracy, or perhaps civil war and territorial disintegration.
Yet, if Iraq does pull through, the signs of slow and gradual progress were always there to see. I have been chronicling them in this series for nine months now, and when majority of Iraqis defied threats and cast their ballots of January 30, I was not surprised; the successful election was not a bolt out of the blue but a culmination of a year and a half of hard work by millions of Iraqis and citizens of the Coalition countries. To use Churchill's formulation, the election, of course, is not the end or even the beginning of the end, but hopefully the end of the beginning. Let us all hope that the journey will continue in the right direction.
America Supports You: 'Until They All Come Home' Bracelet Symbolizes Thanks
January 23, 2005
