Hooah Mail, Holiday Mail for Heros, and my new reading

First, I am eager to tell you about a specific mail program they are starting for soldiers called "Hooah Mail." Please note this program starts December 1st! It is a program that was created for family members and friends of deployed soldiers which allows you to go to a website (www.hooahmail.us) and submit letters to troops overseas. Oh, and it's FREE. Gotta love that, right?? Here's how it works:

1. Visit the website (listed above) and register. 
2. Add the recipient to the address book (please don't forget if you need rank, by December 1st Jesse will be a 1LT!). 
3. Compose a letter. 
4. Add photo if desired. It will print in black and white. I HIGHLY recommend this! 
5. Send the letter. 

This is how it works in country:

1. The letter is sent to a secure server. 
2. The designated Army Post Office downloads the letter to a special machine which prints, folds, and seals it. 
3. The letter is delivered to the soldier through the unit's mail call. 

For more information you can visit:
http://www.myarmyonesource.com/cmsresources/Army%20OneSource/Media/PDFs/About/Hooahmail_Trifold_ScreenRes100.pdf

Please let me know if this link doesn't work or you have any questions regarding Jesse's unit.

Also, I know many of you are itching to send care packages! Chances are if you want to send a package to Jesse for Christmas it's not going to be possible. I highly recommend sending something to a much lonelier GI if you have this itch! One reason why Jesse became an officer was because he wants to be able to teach, share, and help fellow soldiers. I know how that he believes that you always need to take care of your soldiers, and a great way to do that is to visit the Red Cross:

http://www.redcross.org/holidaymail

This site makes sure that our troops get much needed encouragement. This is a time of war and polls show morale is down among our troops. I'm sure many of you say to yourself that I need to put my money where my mouth is.... And I want to let everyone know I have a personal list that I received from the Brigade HHC (Headquarters company) FRG (Family Readiness Group) of injured soldiers from 5th Brigade which I have sent Thanksgiving and Christmas cards to at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. If there was a way for me to make every one of our troops happy -- especially over the holidays -- I would do it!

Next I wanted to talk about the new book I received today from Military One Source. The book is "I'm Already Home...Again." It's a guide to "keeping your family close while on assignment or deployment." I think that every so often I'm going to post a blog about something in this book. I know many of you that read this blog have or will have a family member or spouse deployed, and this book gives some cute ideas to keep things fresh. I absolutely know for a fact if you send letters, care packages, e-mails, etc to your deployed family member they will absolutely brag about you to everyone possible!! This goes over especially well if you're a girlfriend/spouse/fiance. So keep it fresh!!

Okay that was a little more me than the book, but I will share excerpts from the book every so often... Especially if there's nothing else going on!

Oh and FIVE more days until we get those keys!!!

Articles Worth Reading

I know that it's nearly Veteran's Day and I am going to dedicate a blog tomorrow to our veterans of this great country, but I wanted to shed light on a couple of articles that I found today.  They come in my newsfeed to this blog (currently located on the right side of the page), and I saw some positive words that I felt were uplifting to me personally.  I wanted to share them with you.

One article is about support for our troops overseas from our local community, and more specifically Puyallup.  I highly encourage you to visit anysoldier.com to "adopt" a soldier!  This article goes to show the impact that you can have on a soldier, a VETERAN's life.  The link to this article is:

http://www.theolympian.com/living/highlight/story/1029981.html

Second is an article I feel embodies the feeling of many of the military wives (and even some of the military serving overseas) that I know.  How true I feel that this is!  I do have to say that I don't believe everyone feels this way, but I want to share the article from a spouses point of view of the war:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/11/10/EDSS1AGLS3.DTL

I hope everyone has a great day, please keep the members our armed services, allies, and veterans past and present in your prayers this Veteran's Day!

Wreaths Across America

Many of you already know that Jesse had a fellow schoolmate and ROTC classmate that died in Afghanistan June 25th, 2009 from a pressure plated IED.  His name was 1LT Brian Bradshaw.

Bradshaw's family supports this organization, Wreaths Across America, for Bradshaw is buried at Tahoma National Cemetery in Kent, WA.  The organization helps make sure there are enough wreaths to place on grave sites for those men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice.

As his mother has posted on Facebook, last year the cemetery only had 174 wreaths to place on the many graves at the cemetery.  Sponsoring a wreath helps Tahoma National Cemetery along with the many national cemeteries across the country and are only $15 and are delivered directly to the cemetery.  The cemetery code is WATNCK Washington Tahoma National Cemetery Kent.

Visit this site to learn more information:

http://www.wreathsacrossamerica.org/ 

If you can't give monetarily and would like to lend a hand, they have a ceremony where volunteers place wreaths on the grave sites across the country.  This year the ceremony will be on December 12th at 0900.

If you would like to donate money for a scholarship being set up in Brian Bradshaw's name at Pacific Lutheran University (where Jesse went to school), this is the address:

Brian Bradshaw Memorial Fund
Pacific Lutheran University
Office of Development
Tacoma, WA 98447

Thank you!

Shutterfly Account

You can view more pictures of ours & even order them at:

http://jesseandmarissamcadam.shutterfly.com/

Also you can view photos of our trips at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/marissa.mcadam