Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Washington Times
December 19, 2007
Pg. 8
By Associated Press
Holiday cards addressed to “any wounded soldier” at a military hospital won’t have to be returned unopened this year.
The American Red Cross is collecting, reviewing and delivering holiday greeting cards to recovering soldiers at military hospitals who aren’t specifically named on the envelope.
Since 2001, it’s been the policy of military hospitals to return all pieces of mail that aren’t addressed to a particular soldier because of security concerns from the terrorists attacks that year, said Lt. Col. Kevin Arata, spokesman for the Army Human Resources Command.
Since the Red Cross announced its program around Dec. 5, about 35,000 pieces of mail have been sent to the organization. The letters will be distributed to 30 military hospitals across the country, as well as five Red Cross offices in combat zones overseas, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait, and a regional military medical center in Germany, said Joe Moffatt, executive director of service to armed forces at the American Red Cross.
This month’s program, a partnership through the American Red Cross, Defense Department and a mail and technology service provider, allows soldiers the comfort of a stranger’s words, said Army Sgt. Charles Eggleston, who is being treated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in the District.
“You can get a letter from your brother, mother, sister any day,” but a stranger’s words offer broader support,” said Sgt. Eggleston, who was injured by a roadside bomb in Iraq. “[The mail] is very important because it’s uplifting to know that somebody else is out there thinking about you.”
The greeting cards, with adequate postage and a return address, should be sent to: We Support You During Your Recovery!, c/o American Red Cross, P.O. Box 419, Savage, MD 20763-0419.
No packages can be accepted. Red Cross officials urge the public to have the holiday cards postmarked no later than Dec. 24.
The program stops after this holiday season, but Red Cross officials say they will evaluate the success of the program to determine whether it will be continued in coming years.
As the first step in the operation, the mail service provider Pitney Bowes Government Solutions regularly picks up the mail and screens it for hazardous material. The company then submits it to the Red Cross, whose volunteers already sorted through the first batch of mail to ensure its contents are appropriate to send to hospitals. They’ll do it again Saturday and Dec. 29.
Sgt. Eggleston, who returned from Iraq in December 2005, said the cards are especially important for troops who don’t have family members around during the holidays.
“The only family they have is the general public, the American people,” he said.
December 19, 2007
Pg. 8
By Associated Press
Holiday cards addressed to “any wounded soldier” at a military hospital won’t have to be returned unopened this year.
The American Red Cross is collecting, reviewing and delivering holiday greeting cards to recovering soldiers at military hospitals who aren’t specifically named on the envelope.
Since 2001, it’s been the policy of military hospitals to return all pieces of mail that aren’t addressed to a particular soldier because of security concerns from the terrorists attacks that year, said Lt. Col. Kevin Arata, spokesman for the Army Human Resources Command.
Since the Red Cross announced its program around Dec. 5, about 35,000 pieces of mail have been sent to the organization. The letters will be distributed to 30 military hospitals across the country, as well as five Red Cross offices in combat zones overseas, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait, and a regional military medical center in Germany, said Joe Moffatt, executive director of service to armed forces at the American Red Cross.
This month’s program, a partnership through the American Red Cross, Defense Department and a mail and technology service provider, allows soldiers the comfort of a stranger’s words, said Army Sgt. Charles Eggleston, who is being treated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in the District.
“You can get a letter from your brother, mother, sister any day,” but a stranger’s words offer broader support,” said Sgt. Eggleston, who was injured by a roadside bomb in Iraq. “[The mail] is very important because it’s uplifting to know that somebody else is out there thinking about you.”
The greeting cards, with adequate postage and a return address, should be sent to: We Support You During Your Recovery!, c/o American Red Cross, P.O. Box 419, Savage, MD 20763-0419.
No packages can be accepted. Red Cross officials urge the public to have the holiday cards postmarked no later than Dec. 24.
The program stops after this holiday season, but Red Cross officials say they will evaluate the success of the program to determine whether it will be continued in coming years.
As the first step in the operation, the mail service provider Pitney Bowes Government Solutions regularly picks up the mail and screens it for hazardous material. The company then submits it to the Red Cross, whose volunteers already sorted through the first batch of mail to ensure its contents are appropriate to send to hospitals. They’ll do it again Saturday and Dec. 29.
Sgt. Eggleston, who returned from Iraq in December 2005, said the cards are especially important for troops who don’t have family members around during the holidays.
“The only family they have is the general public, the American people,” he said.