Our friend Cheré called last week and asked us to come over to photograph the Blue Star Mothers of NV (Henderson & Boulder City chapter) while they packed up holiday care packages and Christmas stockings for NV servicemen and women. With the help of many businesses who donated items, lots of ladies who sewed up the stockings and an army of determined volunteers, the Moms sent over 1,000 stockings out, just in time to brighten up the holidays.




It was quite an operation with assembly line stuffing and boxing.









The gentlemen in the suit is the Mayor of Henderson, who came out despite an injured hand, to show his support. Of course, the news crew came too...






Volunteers swarm over the pile of stuffed stockings to get them boxed for shipping.



These two gents took a well deserved break after helping to reduce the mammoth pile of stockings to boxed and sealed packages.


We could have just taken pictures, but that's not what we do ... so here's Krystal sealing and taping boxes for the overseas flight.


The moms ran low on socks and a few other supplies. We got the operation back on track with a trip to Costco. You should have seen all the strange looks we got with two cases of socks on the cart. That's 296 pairs of warm feet right there with 1,000 clean pairs of hands, 24 hot meals, 12 packs of beef jerky, lots of candy and many cans of fruit.



There's no doubt that Cheré knows where her son is. As you gather with your friends and family this season, take a few minutes to send good thoughts to our troops for a safe return home.

More pictures

THURSDAY 9-3-09

Parking lot in Mesquite full of bikes.

Lots of people stopped to have a look at Metal of Honor and hear how she was created.

CTS ( Consider the Source) put on a great show!

Everyone was stopped in their tracks to do a double take on Metal of Honor and really look over the engravings.

Mike Kerr, who organized The Honor Run, welcomes the riders to the party in Mesquite.

Kickstands up at 6am to head out to San Marcos, CA.

We're with The Run til the party on Saturday and have been tweeting with pics from the road. Follow us on twitter if you wanna see us thunder down I-5 past Camp Pendleton and all those flags tomorrow.

Alvin Mays, a Pearl Harbor Survivor, living in Augusta, GA runs a landscaping nursery. Thieves have hit his place 4 times in the last few months, stealing equipment and costly plants. See the video here.

We heard something on the radio on Friday about a corps of volunteer bugle men & women who honor our Veterans with a live playing of Taps at every funeral they can. The all volunteer core is called Bugles Across America and was started by Tom Day, who felt our service men and women deserved more than just a CD or an electronic "fake" bugle as authorized by Congress. These "alternative methods" are only used when a live bugler is not available. There is a shortage of serving buglers, so he is actively recruiting anyone who can play Taps to attend funerals in their area and show their respect to the departed and the family with a live salute.

Bugles Across America now has over 5000 bugler volunteers located in all 50 states and growing number overseas. Since the Department of Veterans Affairs is expecting more than 1/2 million veterans to pass every year for the next 7 years, Bugles Across America is ALWAYS recruiting new volunteers.

Bugler Volunteers can be male or female. They can play a traditional bugle with no valves, or they can perform the ceremony on a Trumpet, Cornet, Flugelhorn, or a 1, 2 or 3 valved bugle. The bugler can be of any age as long as they can play the 24 notes of Taps with an ease and style that will do honor to both the Veterans, their families, and the burial detail performing the service.

John and Frances sent me this challenge coin created to honor his 100th birthday last month. It came with a as note thanking me for being part of his birthday celebrations. John gives these coins out to friends and people he meets as a kind of souvenir. Various groups or private individuals pay to have them minted for him. Many current and former military personnel have these coins made and the ones from high-ranking officials can be very valuable to collectors. In John's case, the coins are highly prized because of his status as the oldest living Medal of Honor recipient.

This coin will join the silver one shown below that John autographed for me for the Coronado 4th of July Parade. This one is a bit odd as there is a typographical error on the reverse of the coin, but the overall design is very well executed.

It takes a few seconds and means so much.

I made up these new banner's for Bouhammer's Afghanistan blog as a thank you for having Dana on the Youserved Podcast last week. Troy was so nice when I asked him, right out of the blue, to have Dana on the show that I felt I should lend him a hand to make his blog rock even harder. If you have family in Afghanistan, or just want to know what's going on, Troy's blog is a great read. OOORAH!

I guess you could say Dana's friend John Finn is a "rock star." The US Navy certainly thinks so, especially all the ordnancemen. Here's a story from DVIDS about a flag that has been traveling the world over to be flown in honor of John's 100th birthday. Second story. Third story

"We all gathered together during flight operations today to honor a man that we respect very highly," said Clift. "Aviation ordnancemen look up to this man for his accomplishments and for his leadership within his rate and his community." The flag that was raised on Eisenhower yesterday has already been flown at sea aboard USS George Washington, USS John C. Stennis and USS Ronald Reagan. It will continue making its way from one destination to the next until it is finally presented to Finn on his 100th birthday, July 23.

A photo Dana took of John at one of his MANY 100th birthday parties.
This image and two others Dana took of John's Medal of Honor were enlarged to adorn the car John and his longtime caretaker Francis rode in during the Coronado 4th of July Parade.

If you're on twitter and love our troops, please support #Militarymon or #militarymonday by tweeting out a thank you to someone you know who's served or a cause that helps our fighting folks. Just add the hashtag #militarymon or #militarymonday to your tweet.




Curious how some of our troops spend the 4th of July? More pics and story at Gazing at the Flag blog.

The Navy sailors aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. John C. Stennis took a little time to acknowledge Mr. Finn's 100th birthday with this display. John is very well loved throughout the Navy.

John's 100th birthday party, which Dana attended with Metal of Honor, has also generated some press article 2 article 3

We just ran across this great charity where you can send a care package to a deployed solider that is tailored to that solider's particular needs. Check out Herobox.org.