CoachT.com
Saturday, March 1, 2003
We Must Support Our Troops
When I got on the plane September 10, 1990, at the airfield at Ft. Campbell with a 101st Airborne patch on my shoulder I was 23 years old, single with almost no responsibilities. I had been in the Army all of 18 months and I was lucky enough to be going to the first war this country decided to have in 20 years.
While I felt pretty strong in my training I will freely admit I was scared. I was scared of what might happen and what might not. I was scared of the horrors of war and that the things I'd seen in movies and training films might actually happen to me. I was also scared that I might not make it home to the greatest place on earth.
About a month before I left I was in the convoys that traveled from Ft. Campbell to Jacksonville. During that convoy was where I first felt the unbelievable love and support that would end up being the real story of my deployment. When we hit Monteagle Mountain on the convoy there were some of my friends on one of the overpasses waving flags and yelling at the top of their lungs. At the fuel stop on the mountain my mother and aunt were there and had brought fudge, peanut butter candy and pound cake for the guys in my unit. Then as we traveled off the mountain through Marion County and Chattanooga the highway was lined with folks waving flags and just pouring out love anyway they could show.
September 11, 1990, I stepped off the plane in Dhahran at 10:30 at night. Strangely enough it was 101 degrees outside when we got there. We traveled to a base camp area and began the long wait for the action to start. Time passed very slowly. Some days you thought you'd go crazy waiting for the battle to begin or to get news from home. But soon mail call began rolling around and it rolled in like thunder for me.
I spent 214 days in Saudi Arabia and Iraq in 1990 and 1991. During that time I received over 1000 letters and somewhere in between 70 and 80 care packages. When it was over my mailing list was around 140 to 150 people. Most were friends and family from Grundy and Marion Counties and some came from Any Soldier mail.
Some guys were lucky to get one letter every few days and often I would get 10 or more in one day. To try and fully describe to you how that made me feel would be impossible. However, I can say this much. Every time I felt down someone from home would pick me up with a card, a letter or a package.
Most times I shared what was in my packages. The pound cake and cookies that my mother, aunt and sister sent were savored by many members of 63rd Chemical. One fellow troop was so taken by Mom's cookies that he wrote her a letter begging for more. A few weeks later when a huge package came in for him I watched that grown man cry. He said to me, "These people don't even know me." I replied, "It doesn't matter. They know me and they know you're my friend and you needed something."
Everyone would wander by my location after mail call and see what came in and share in the love from home. They all really went wild over my birthday cake made by my darling grandmother in Monteagle. Thank goodness that she still makes them for me even though I'm 36 and she's 82.
There was one thing I didn't share however. My nine cans of Sundrop were sacred and I kept them all to myself.
So why am I telling the CoachT family all this and why is CoachT publishing it? It's simple. We must do the same today for the troops that are deployed now. We must make every effort to lift their spirits and keep them strong every day they are away from home. That is a mission we must accept and we must not fail to complete.
And it matters not if you support the idea of war. The men and women of the Armed Services swore an oath to protect and defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic. They also swore in that oath to follow the orders of the President and the officers above them. So they must deploy and fight no matter if it's Iraq, Korea or on the borders of the United States.
So because they took that oath to protect us I hope we will do our part to serve them. I promise you it made all the difference in the world for me 12 years ago, and I promise it will make all the difference in the world for those serving today. They will treasure every card, letter and package. Almost all of my letters are in a box in the attic that I bring out and reminisce about now and then.
So get some boxes together. Go to the store and buy some goodies. Get some stationary and stamps together. Stand up and support our troops. Let them know how much you appreciate the mission they have accepted to protect us. Don't let them down. We must support our troops.
Del Tavian
Desert Storm Veteran
63rd Chemical Company
101st Airborne Division, Air Assault!
While I felt pretty strong in my training I will freely admit I was scared. I was scared of what might happen and what might not. I was scared of the horrors of war and that the things I'd seen in movies and training films might actually happen to me. I was also scared that I might not make it home to the greatest place on earth.
About a month before I left I was in the convoys that traveled from Ft. Campbell to Jacksonville. During that convoy was where I first felt the unbelievable love and support that would end up being the real story of my deployment. When we hit Monteagle Mountain on the convoy there were some of my friends on one of the overpasses waving flags and yelling at the top of their lungs. At the fuel stop on the mountain my mother and aunt were there and had brought fudge, peanut butter candy and pound cake for the guys in my unit. Then as we traveled off the mountain through Marion County and Chattanooga the highway was lined with folks waving flags and just pouring out love anyway they could show.
September 11, 1990, I stepped off the plane in Dhahran at 10:30 at night. Strangely enough it was 101 degrees outside when we got there. We traveled to a base camp area and began the long wait for the action to start. Time passed very slowly. Some days you thought you'd go crazy waiting for the battle to begin or to get news from home. But soon mail call began rolling around and it rolled in like thunder for me.
I spent 214 days in Saudi Arabia and Iraq in 1990 and 1991. During that time I received over 1000 letters and somewhere in between 70 and 80 care packages. When it was over my mailing list was around 140 to 150 people. Most were friends and family from Grundy and Marion Counties and some came from Any Soldier mail.
Some guys were lucky to get one letter every few days and often I would get 10 or more in one day. To try and fully describe to you how that made me feel would be impossible. However, I can say this much. Every time I felt down someone from home would pick me up with a card, a letter or a package.
Most times I shared what was in my packages. The pound cake and cookies that my mother, aunt and sister sent were savored by many members of 63rd Chemical. One fellow troop was so taken by Mom's cookies that he wrote her a letter begging for more. A few weeks later when a huge package came in for him I watched that grown man cry. He said to me, "These people don't even know me." I replied, "It doesn't matter. They know me and they know you're my friend and you needed something."
Everyone would wander by my location after mail call and see what came in and share in the love from home. They all really went wild over my birthday cake made by my darling grandmother in Monteagle. Thank goodness that she still makes them for me even though I'm 36 and she's 82.
There was one thing I didn't share however. My nine cans of Sundrop were sacred and I kept them all to myself.
So why am I telling the CoachT family all this and why is CoachT publishing it? It's simple. We must do the same today for the troops that are deployed now. We must make every effort to lift their spirits and keep them strong every day they are away from home. That is a mission we must accept and we must not fail to complete.
And it matters not if you support the idea of war. The men and women of the Armed Services swore an oath to protect and defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic. They also swore in that oath to follow the orders of the President and the officers above them. So they must deploy and fight no matter if it's Iraq, Korea or on the borders of the United States.
So because they took that oath to protect us I hope we will do our part to serve them. I promise you it made all the difference in the world for me 12 years ago, and I promise it will make all the difference in the world for those serving today. They will treasure every card, letter and package. Almost all of my letters are in a box in the attic that I bring out and reminisce about now and then.
So get some boxes together. Go to the store and buy some goodies. Get some stationary and stamps together. Stand up and support our troops. Let them know how much you appreciate the mission they have accepted to protect us. Don't let them down. We must support our troops.
Del Tavian
Desert Storm Veteran
63rd Chemical Company
101st Airborne Division, Air Assault!
