Military Officer - October 2007 - (Page 55)

and books for the kids. We also have bunks and showers here.” Huff also helps troops and their families when they experience travel delays or miss their connecting ﬂight. For example, when a military family recently missed its connecting ﬂight to Japan, the USO was there to help. “The ﬂight to Japan only leaves once a week, and they missed it,” says Hinman. “Usually, we’d try to get them on a commercial ﬂight, but then one of their three kids fell ill, and mom and dad were just frazzled at [that] point. We took the mom and sick child to the hospital, and we set up the rest of the family in one of the hotels across the street. The idea of them staying [at the airport] for a week until the next ﬂight was just crazy. So we helped stabilize things until they were ready to travel.” Packaged with care The Puget Sound Area USO center at McChord AFB also provides a wide range of services to help servicemembers and their families. For example, every servicemember deploying to PHOTO: DFW USO VOLUNTEER a combat zone receives a USO care package, many of which are assembled by members of MOAA’s Mount Vernon (Va.) Chapter. Mount Vernon Chapter members began supporting the USO Care Package program two years ago. Each month, a group of chapter members travels to the USO warehouse at Fort Belvoir, Va., where they spend ﬁve to six hours assembling care packages containing items such as prepaid international phone cards, disposable cameras, and toiletries. “The USO warehouse at Fort Belvoir is the only place in the country that assembles these care packages. Our volunteers can stuff more than 10,000 packages in ﬁve or six hours,” says Lt. Cmdr. William Broome, USCG, president of the Mount Vernon Chapter. Care packages also might be shipped directly to deployed units. Recently, Capt. Amy Rivera, USAF, operations ofﬁcer for the 380th Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron that’s stationed in the Middle East, received a shipment of more than 200 care packag- CHECK IT OUT! Starting in November’s issue of Military Officer, the Chapter r Activities section has been ove ities overhauled and renamed Chapters i d in Action to better showcase how etter MOAA chapter members lead pter the way in community support. es that were assembled by members of the Mount Vernon Chapter. “Many of my [guys] and gals have seen numerous tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, guarding detainees, running convoys, or guarding hundreds or thousands of servicemembers on foreign soil, and again, they leave their families to do it again,” says Rivera. “I also have airmen who are on their very ﬁrst deployment in the Air Force at a reasonable base with the looming future of many more deployments to many different locations. But six days ago, I got a chance to show these airmen how much people [really care about] and appreciate them when we handed out care packages. A little touch of home goes a long way.” MO OCTOBER 2007 MILITARY OFFICER 55

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Military Officer - October 2007

Military Officer - October 2007 Contents From the Editor From the President Your Views MOAA Directory Rapid Fire Washington Scene Financial Forum Ask the Doctor Chapter Activities Cover Story: A Hero's Welcome? Partners in Patriotism Tales from Beyond the Battlefield Financial Results of MOAA Pages of History Information Exchange Faces of MOAA Member Books MOAA Scholarship Donors Advertising Index MOAA Member Services MOAA Calendar Sounding Taps Encore

Military Officer - October 2007

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