Any Soldier

For everyone who celebrated Veteran's Day yesterday, I wanted to keep one place in a spotlight as it were. It's a web site called Any Soldier, and I write about them once a year now, in much the way that the media usually does stories on the homeless around this time of year. That's probably not the way it should be, we should constantly keep both our military people and our homeless in the forefront of our minds at all times.

That being said, the Any Soldier program is designed brilliantly. Started by concerned parents, who wanted to do something to help their son make it through the holiday season with love from home, it grew swiftly within the online community, and now has a domain for each branch of the military, including the Coast Guard. Their approach is simple. They put together care packages that range from the very basic ie; soap, shampoo, and other personal hygiene products, to more elaborate packages that can have everything from cookies and candy to a crushable pillow, and other life essentials that no one misses until the skin tearing desert sands blast across the faces of our men and women overseas.

But they don't just send these packages to places like Iraq and Afghanistan. The online communities showed such an outpouring of support over the last couple of years, that they have expanded into getting these care packages to almost every corner of the globe, in order to give as many of our people the knowledge that they are not forgotten, and to have that small, but ever so meaningful piece of home at a time of year when we all tend to forget about the rest of the world.

We all like to talk about supporting the troops. Now you know of at least one place, that you can literally put your money where your mouth is. Go to AnySoldier dot com, and send a package to any soldier. You don't have to send a card along, should you choose to remain anonymous. And you don't have to have a ton of money in order to make someone's day. In fact, at their sister site, treatanysoldier dot com, you can have the people who volunteer at Any Soldier send something as small as a $12.00 pillow. That's the cost of two lattes, and easily affordable. But what if you're truly broke and can't afford to send anything in the form of a gift or phone card, or care package? Then simply scroll through the lists at Any Soldier, and you'll find tons of service members that would enjoy nothing more than to receive a piece of mail every once in a while.

We can all agree to disagree on the war, on it's cause, or the reasons we are there. Most of us can wish this war over, and our military to come home. But when it comes to supporting our military, the guardians of both you and I, the ones who make it possible for you to sleep safely in your own bed at night, while they hold the wolves at bay, there should be no room for debate. Contact Any Soldier at their web site, and DO something that can brighten the atmosphere just a little for a battle scarred veteran who sacrifices so much for us, and asks for so little in return. Batmanchester