Million Thanks My Campaign to Send One Million Letters to Our Troops

Chapter one The Beginning of a Remarkable Journey As we rode on the train from Anaheim to San Diego, I had no idea that my life was about to change. The Amtrak Surfliner was great, and I loved looking out the window to see all the sights. Against the deep blue Pacific Ocean, I saw people surfing near the San Onofre power plant because the water is warmer closer to the reactor. There was a line of cars waiting to get through the border patrol's checkpoint, and U.S. and Marine Corps flags flew high over Camp Pendleton. I saw the tall buildings of San Diego State University where I would later dorm during a basketball tournament (we placed fourth out of sixty-four teams that weekend). The marine training facility near the beach buzzed with activity, with helicopters hovering, tanks in motion, and navy ships anchored just off shore. All of this was fascinating to look at, but it didn't diminish the fact that I really didn't want to be there. It was Thanksgiving Day, 2002, and we were supposed to be home having dinner together as a family. Instead, my dad agreed to arrange a meal for a few hundred strangers--soldiers and their families--at the USO. I knew he had been involved in doing things for the troops, collecting valentines Americans wrote for them and that sort of thing, but at thirteen, I didn't really pay much attention to any of it. All I knew now was that this wasn't going to be a real Thanksgiving. Yes, our family was going to be together (my younger brother Ryan, my mom and dad, my Grandpa Nate and Grandma Betty, my Aunt Sandee and Uncle Mike, and me), but we would be eating with hundreds of people we didn't know. When we got to the USO, though, I started to feel differently about things almost immediately. The people there were either soldiers back on leave or family members of soldiers who were away defending our country. Most of them lived on bases, and this USO was the closest thing they had to home. They didn't have much of a choice about where they were going to spend their Thanksgiving. I could see they really appreciated having a place to celebrate and that people cared enough to do something like this for them. It made me feel a little guilty for complaining to my parents earlier about having to make the trip. We began decorating the upstairs hall for the Thanksgiving meal. There were rows and rows of tables. My mom and aunt hung Happy Thanksgiving signs and pictures of turkeys and pilgrims. My dad, my brother, and I set up an area with games in which soldiers and families could win prizes my dad had delivered there earlier that week. The rest of our family helped the cooks finish preparing the dozens of turkeys in the USO's huge kitchen. A few days earlier, the USO had called my dad for help when their main food donor backed out at the last minute, leaving them with no food to serve. He'd helped them out in the past with donations of prizes for various events, and they knew he was in the fun center and restaurant business. My dad enlisted the help of Kevin Davis, the CEO of Bristol Farms (a large grocery store chain) and the father of my friend Kristen. He agreed to donate most of the food. While we served dinner, I looked around the room and thought it was great that Kevin and my dad had helped the USO and these people so much. Amazingly, it seemed like a traditional Thanksgiving (if your family was really, really huge). After the meal, I operated a spinning wheel where kids could win prizes. This was a big deal to these kids because money was tight for most of their families, and the kids couldn't simply get toys whenever they wanted them. There was also something called the Santa Store, which the USO runs before Christmas for military families who can't afford gifts for each other. At the Santa Store, stocked with donations from local businesses, they can pick gifts for each other without charge. Throughout the USO, there was a real sense ofFleming, Shauna is the author of 'Million Thanks My Campaign to Send One Million Letters to Our Troops', published 2005 under ISBN 9780385515702 and ISBN 0385515707.