Holiday cards bring love, piece of home to deployed service members

Holiday cards bring love, piece of home to deployed service members

Far from home and stationed in a remote outpost in Iraq over Christmas, Sgt. Jonathan Thibault remembered the comfort of receiving cards from school children and other members of the public during the holidays. "You feel the sensation that you get when you receive something great that you weren't expecting," he said. "Some of us didn't have families back home and it doesn't feel like Christmas when you're there." Thibault was in Iraq on a year-long deployment. He had two small children at home and a wife in the Army at the time. He said those heartfelt messages meant a tremendous amount to him and the others at the small base, Combat Outpost Nimur, in 2008. "For those guys to receive letters, it was the thing that made Christmas for them in a place where the environment is not covered in snow and cheer but with sand and fear," he said. Members of all branches of the military will likely find that same comfort and joy in similar messages when the Red Cross makes it rounds again this year in delivering bundles of cards for the holiday season. The Red Cross brings cards with special messages and greetings to veterans, military families and deployed service members worldwide, said Red Cross spokesman Peter Macias, who is the program lead for the Holiday Mail for Heroes program.

Read the rest of the story on the site below.

Written by Lisa Ferdinando, ARNEWS

Retrieved on 4 Dec 2013-12-04

http://www.army.mil/article/116255/Holiday_cards_bring_love__piece_of_home_to_deployed_service_members/