Soldiers’ Angel faithfully in touch
Published: June 1, 2006
If you don’t believe angels are real, then say hello to Dawn Marie Grindle.
Set aside visions of white-winged, flowing-robed beings. This angel lives in a modest apartment off South College Road making a living as a shift manager at Papa John’s Pizza, where a friend unknowingly inspired her to become a Soldiers’ Angel.
That’s a title the 38-year-old is earning by writing at least one letter a week and sending one care package a month to a soldier with the Fort Campbell, Ky.-based 101st Airborne Division in Iraq.
Her status began when a friend and veteran of the war in Iraq commented how during his months in Iraq he received one letter from home.
“I would hate to be over there and never have my name called during mail call,” Grindle said.
So she did an Internet search for “adopt a soldier” and the first Web site that popped up on the laptop in a corner of her living room was soldiersangels.org. Soldiers’ Angels was formed in 2003 by a California mother of a soldier serving in Iraq. One of her son’s letters home indicated how some of his fellow soldiers did not receive mail.
What started as a friendship network turned into a nonprofit organization with thousands of members worldwide.
The site is dedicated to ensuring soldiers worldwide receive support. Browsers have a host of choices to participate. You can sign up for a letter writing campaign. Sew blankets for wounded servicemen. Send gift boxes you can order from the Web site. Or adopt a soldier or more and adhere to the rules - at least one letter a week, one care package a month.
The adoption process is fairly simple. Adopters are asked to share some personal information, such as hobbies, and then they’re matched with soldiers.
Grindle’s match to a 25-year-old Army medic earlier this month paired two video game junkies. They’ve e-mailed one another. She’s sent letters, sharing her days’ experiences, the weather, anything to give him a sense of life closer to home.
“I treat him like he’s someone I’ve known all my life,” she said.
He doesn’t have paper or envelopes to exchange correspondence the old-fashioned way.
But she’s taking care of that. Spread atop a white storage freezer next to the bar dividing Grindle’s kitchen and living room are goodies she and her boyfriend gathered to mail in her first care package to the soldier. There are stamped, self-addressed envelopes, a package of pencils, a pencil sharpener, a sand scarf, a crossword puzzle, a water balloon slingshot, powdered lemonade mix, granola bars, sunblock, candles and Axe body wash.
There’s also a theme gift - a package of Life Savers.
“Basically, it’s everything we take for granted,” Grindle said.
Now, she’s starting her own campaign, “Operation Peace Time,” to collect DVDs, CDs, video games and paperback books to send to Iraq. If you’d like to donate, e-mail her at ilmangel@ec.rr.com.
Grindle said she’d like to adopt other soldiers, but financial constraints limit her to cheaper options, like becoming other soldier’s e-pals and joining the Soldiers’ Angels letter writing campaign. She said she wished she knew how to sew so she could make a blanket for a wounded soldier.
When the soldier she’s adopted returns home, she hopes to stay in contact with him.
“We’d actually like to go and greet him when he comes back,” she said.
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