Soldier pays surprise visit to 5th-grade “angel”

Published: January 9, 2007 | 5263rd good news item since 2003

When Brianna Cart sent letters and packages to Army Sgt. 1st Class Van Alexander in Iraq, she had no way of knowing how much her efforts would matter, he said Monday.

Alexander surprised Brianna and her fellow fifth-graders at Apalachin Elementary School by popping in to offer his thanks in person. He and his unit got back to Ft. Hood, Texas, before the holidays. He had never met Brianna in person, though the two had spoken on the phone once or twice.

For the last year, Brianna and her mom, Maryanne Van Burger, have been sending packages filled with toothpaste, soap, snacks and other essentials, which Alexander then shared with the 28 grateful soldiers in his platoon.
“We were going to send one once a month, but we ended up doing it as often as we had the money,” says Van Burger, whose beauty shop collected donations from her customers. She estimates they’ve sent about $2,000 worth of goods to the soldiers over the last year.

The gifts cheered up the troops, Alexander said, but they ultimately had a much more important purpose — one Brianna could never have guessed.

“Not only did she help us,” said Alexander, 36, “but she helped us to help the Iraqi children.”

The kids especially coveted the toys and toiletries she sent, which the soldiers passed along as gifts to them. The children, in turn, would “give us information and tell us where the bad guys were.”

He and his wife, Virginia, have three adult children and one grandchild of their own, and he feels as if Brianna is a surrogate daughter to him, he said.

Another girl touched his heart while he was in Iraq.

“She was a little tiny girl,” he said. “She came running up to me, looked up and said very clearly in English, ‘I love you.’

“And then she ran away.”

That wasn’t something the soldiers encountered much. Some Iraqis outright hated them; others made their appreciation clear; still others were clearly fearful to interact with the Americans at all.

Alexander was able to relay some of his experience in the letters he sent to his benefactors in Apalachin.

Brianna and her mom had named their project Angels Over Iraq, and they asked the community to help — which it did, providing them with all kinds of goodies and cash.

Delegates from Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1371 and its auxiliary were among the project’s most stalwart supporters.

Auxiliary members Doris Camp, Linda Barrett and Caroline Striley explained that the post’s bingo team has been furnishing money so Brianna could send the packages.

Brianna’s classmates have been writing to the soldiers, too, says their teacher, Keith Newman, who helped keep the surprise visit a secret.

Alexander had called Van Burger over Christmas and hatched the plan.

He gave presents back to the woman and girl who had given so much.

The whole platoon would be there if they could, he told them.

In its place he gave the two a portrait of them all, along with certificates, coins and other tokens of their appreciation.

Published in Charity and Kids & Teens
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