America Supports You E-Newsletter 12 Dec 2007

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December 12, 2007

E-Newsletter Volume CXL

Washington, D.C.

Army Staff Sgt. Mia Sidlasky receives a bowl of stew during the fifth annual Virginia Ann Wiedmaier Holiday Dinner prepared by local chefs for injured servicemembers and their families at the Mologne House Hotel at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Washington, D.C.

President and Mrs. Bush share their seat with one of 200 children from military families invited to the White House for the children’s holiday party.

Andrews Air Force Base, Md.

Taylor Rice (center), 10, a member of the Andrews Air Force Base Youth Center, and Rachel Seagraves (right), a school-age programming assistant at the center, show First Lady Laura Bush one of the projects they are making at the center.

New on the ASY Team
America Supports You is proud to welcome four new homefront organizations to the team this week!

South Florida Veterans Multi-Purpose Cente,, based in Davie, Fla., provides equine assisted therapy for veterans suffering from the trauma of war.</STRONG>

Operation Military Embrace, Inc., in Hockley, Tex., supports seriously wounded military members and their families at medical facilities. The organization also provides funding for legal counsel for servicemembers and sends them care packages.

Project TLC: Serving Those Who Serve, in Landstuhl, Germany,provides comfort items to injured and deployed servicemembers. ASY from Coast to Coast and Across the Ocean
Ten Washington, D.C. area chefs recently spread the ASY message, cooking recovering servicemembers and their families a delicious meal. Patients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center dined on barbequed brisket, beef stew with potato puree and roasted chestnut soup, among other delicious entrees. Two restaurants provided pecan pie and other assorted desserts. Chef Robert Wiedmaier, owner of Marcel’s and Brasserie Beck started the holiday meal five few years ago when his mother, then a patient at Walter Reed, told him it would be appreciated at the center. The dinner was renamed the Virginia Ann Wiedmaier Holiday Dinner in honor of Chef Wiedmaier’s mother after she passed away two years ago. Wiedmaier, whose father is a retired Army colonel, said the dinners would continue as long as there are wounded service members to serve. USO of Metropolitan Washington, which has helped organize the event since its inception, again provided volunteers to assist, handing out door prizes and taking boxed meals to hospital inpatients. USO volunteers took the same meal to sailors and Marines recovering at the National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda, Md. “It was fantastic,” said Army Spc. Cory Smith, who’s recovering from injuries to his right eye and hand. “(I tried) everything; really, everything.” Read More

President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush recently hosted 200 military children in the East Room of the White House for a holiday party. Mrs. Bush got the party started by asking the children a trick question, “The theme (for the White House’s holiday decorations) is, ‘Our National Parks,’… Have you ever been in a national park?” After the children gave their answers she responded, “guess what? You’re in one right now,” noting there are 25 national parks in Washington. Actors from Ford’s Theatre joined the party, presenting a portion of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” The children were also entertained with an adaptation of the holiday classic “The Ghost of Christmas Present,” featuring Ebenezer Scrooge and Tiny Tim. Toward the end of the party, the children were greeted by Mary A. Bomar, director of the National Park Service, who made all of the children Junior Rangers. Read More

Several Indiana representatives from ASY homefront organization Quilts of Valor Foundation recently received certificates of appreciation from the Indiana adjutant general for their commitment to honoring servicemembers. Maj. Gen. R. Martin Umbarger and Command Sgt. Maj. James Brown of the Indiana National Guard presented the awards at Joint Forces Headquarters. The foundation’s mission is to cover all physically or psychologically wounded servicemembers with special wartime quilts. Sgt. Tony Maddox, injured in Iraq by an improvised explosive device while deployed with the 1313th Engineer Company, received his quilt in August 2007 during the unit’s homecoming at Camp Atterbury Joint Maneuver Training Center in Edinburgh, Ind. Maddox was present at the November ceremony, thanking the women who made his quilt. “I think it’s great these ladies are there to help soldiers like me,” Maddox said. “It is our way of honoring our injured servicemembers with an “eternal hug” of a custom-made quilt,” said Joyce Jones, a Quilts of Valor Foundation volunteer. Read More

First Lady Laura Bush continued showingASY servicemembersupport by attending a special event at Andrews Air Force Base, Md. to learn about challenges facing military youth and let them know they’re not forgotten. “We need to get the word out to children of all of our military families, (that) we know you do serve also, and (of) the sacrifices you make with your parents gone for a long part of your childhood. We want military kids to know we are aware of that,” Bush said during the “Helping America’s Youth” event. Dr. Stephen Cozza, professor of psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University, also told the audience that military kids have just as tough and important a job as their parents do. Dr. Cozza added that servicemember deployments are taxing on families, and the combat experience can affect childrens’ parents when they return home. Open discussion can help families and children better understand the changes they may see in their parents. The first lady also heard from organizations such as the Armed Services YMCA, the National Military Family Association, and Boys and Girls Clubs of America, which are reaching out to the overall community to ensure all military children have resources available. Read More

Military.com recently hosted its third “SpouseBuzzLive” conference near Fort Bragg, covering such topics as anticipatory grief, reintegration and relocation. More than 300 military spouses attended the conference, which featured a live Web broadcast from the site. Spouses talked with one another, visited booths and participated in panels, in addition to discovering new methods for connecting with one another as well as their servicemembers. The conference was founded 14 months age by Andi Hurley, an Army spouse, as an extension of an online diary (blog) for military spouses hosted by Military.com. “You cannot always find long-lasting relationships with military spouses if you are constantly relocating; now I can connect with other spouses no matter where they are in the country, and they already know my story,” said Sarah Walter, one of 11 SpouseBuzz site authors. Read More

Corporate supporter Barnes and Noble is spreading ASY holiday spirit, by creating an online book store at www.bn.com/asy, that benefits servicemember support organizations with a 5 percent donation from each sale. The ASY groups benefitting include: ThanksUSA, Operation Troop Appreciation, Operation AC, Adopt-A-Chaplain, Comfort for America's Uniformed Services, Give2TheTroops, Operation Paperback, and United Through Reading. Each organization will receive an equal share of the total donations annually. The Web site will be available year round. "After Barnes & Noble made our multi-million dollar book donation earlier this year, we considered how we could continue to support ASY," said Brian Buckley, vice president of online partnership for Barnes&Noble.com. Read More

Servicemembers deployed overseas are able to more easily keep in touch with their loved ones at home thanks to ASY supporter, JDS Computer Donations, an affiliate of the ASY homefront group Any Soldier Inc. Volunteers take donated computers and refurbish them for use by the troops. They have already sent more than 500 computers to U.S. military men and women overseas to use for education, entertainment and communication with their loved ones back home.



Featured on the ASY Web Site Last Week:
Homefront Readiness
“The main effort of the ‘Homefront Readiness’ program is to help military veterans find good, secure jobs within the civilian sector…. We have been incredibly successful thus far ….Currently, 69 veterans are enrolled in the program, and 16 have secured civilian jobs.”
- Becca Smith, Director, Homefront Readiness
ASY In the News
Wilmington News Journal (Del.) wrote a story on the America Supports You homefront group, Sew Much Comfort that makes adaptive clothing for wounded service members Concord Monitor (N.H.) and Times Record News (TX.) mentioned ASY as a resource for people to find groups accepting donations for care packages.
Madison Record (Ala.) wrote a story about ASY’s CD For the Troops, a free CD recorded exclusively for the U.S. military men and women, by 13 top artists.
ASY Homefront Organization of the Week:
The Bob Woodruff Family Fund for Traumatic Brain Injury assists military men and women recovering from traumatic brain injury (TBI) and combat stress injuries including post-traumatic stress disorder. The fund works to raise public awareness and excellence in research, education, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of these military men and women, as well as helping injured with support and resources to adjust to life after war.To find out more, check out: http://www.bobwoodrufffamilyfund.org/

From the Troops:

“I wanted to take the time to thank you for all that you do for the soldiers and their families. Being in the military is hard enough sometimes however, the spouses and the children sometimes have to suffer as well. Thanks for comforting them most of all.”
- Jason Gidney SGT US ARMY, Valdosta, Ga

“Greetings from Iraq! I just wanted to thank all of you who are supporting all the troops. It means so much to know there are people who are right beside us. Many of us in the Military join because we want to serve for our country and protect our loved ones, being in Iraq the only family you have is your fellow soldiers, marines, airman and sailors. When we receive your appreciation it makes us feel a little bit more at home. I hope you all realize how much it really does mean. God bless and happy holidays.”
-Amy M. Ransier, A1C, USAF, Fairchild Air Force Base, Wash.

Our troops deserve to be applauded, and so do you!

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