Today's Officer - Winter 2007 - (Page 29) OBSERVATION POST by Tom Philpott With the help of one online program, American businesses, organizations, and individuals can reassure servicemembers they have support back home. Proof America Supports You THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION hasn’t been credited with making many wise moves on behalf of servicemembers and their families since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Without the new programs adopted by DoD at the direction of a Congress worried about troop morale, the bragging list really thins out. But one DoD effort, the America Supports You (ASY) program, deserves recognition for helping to assure servicemembers and their families the nation stands behind them, even though support for the Iraq war has fallen. ASY is largely an online effort. Servicemembers who visit www.americasupportsyou.mil come away with a sense of the depth and breadth of the programs to help them through long deployments, injuries, and the trials of service life in wartime. Further providing proof of the nation’s support, the Web site also has become a conduit for more individuals, nonprofit organizations, and businesses to support servicemembers and their families. The site publishes articles about new initiatives launched by some of the 280 nonprofit “home front groups” and 35 corporations committed to helping servicemembers’ families. There are links to nonprofit groups and to offers of donated computers, frequent-flier miles, gift certificates, and phone cards. Spouses and parents can arrange for care packages, cards, and letters to be sent to deployed loved ones. Visitors to the Web site can post messages of support to troops and their families and read the responses from troops. ASY is the brainchild of Allison Barber, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Public Liaison and Internal Communications. Her office launched the program in November 2004 after she and other officials began hearing deployed forces ask whether the nation still supported them. Barber says she was disturbed to hear such doubts. “In my community outreach role, I was seeing wonderful things happening. I would hear about churches holding bakeoffs to send to the troops. Organizations and companies were doing great things. So I realized there was a very big disconnect in our country. We had people doing great things for the troops but nobody telling [the troops] about [them],” she says. ASY “connects the dots,” she says. The goal was to construct a “national platform” on the Internet that billboards for troops and their families the actions being taken on their behalf. The PHOTO: STEVE BARRETT Web site “gives voice … to all of these wonderful people of all ages who do so much for our military community,” says Barber. Using the Internet, she says, ensures “no matter where our military members are, they would see and hear this one message over and over again, loud and clear: America supports you.” Though ASY seeks to reassure troops and their families, it also serves to deepen involvement by individuals, nonprofit organizations, and businesses who want to add their support or begin their own initiatives to help servicemembers. “What’s so fascinating and great about America Supports You is that it was built to be agile,” says Barber. “For the first time in the history of [DoD], when terrific people call saying, ‘What can I do to support the troops?’ we can send them to the America Supports You Web site, and they can choose to connect to one of 280 nonprofit groups doing wonderful things for our troops and our families.” Barber adds, ASY now is “the connector program for [DoD]” making it “really easy for people to find ways to support our troops” regardless of how busy they are in their own lives. They can help send the teenaged children of deployed servicemembers to summer camp, donate money to help pay for tutors for the children of mobilized Guard and Reserve members, help buy and refurbish homes for severely wounded veterans, and much more. The most popular goal for individual Americans continues to be sending care packages, cards, and letters to deployed personnel. According to Barber, she took advantage of such a link when her husband, Linden, an Army Reserve JAG officer, was deployed to Iraq. “This one group popped up and said, ‘Let us send care packages to your spouse.’ So I wrote in [and] gave them my husband’s address. Next thing I know, he gets a neat care package with cards from a bunch of third graders.” Barber says it’s impossible not to be moved by the comments posted on the ASY Web site. “What keeps me going every day [is] … the e-mails the troops are sending back about how much the support means to them. It’s just amazing.” Tom Philpott is a freelance writer and syndicated news columnist. His column, “Military Update,” appears in 48 daily newspapers in the United States and overseas. Winter 2007/08 TODAY’S OFFICER 29 http://www.americasupportsyou.mil
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