Posted on 12/15/2009 8:31:12 AM PST by wbill
BANGOR, Maine — Stephen and Tabitha King had no problem donating money to ensure that the 150 members of Bravo Company of the 3rd Battalion, 172nd Infantry Unit could come home for the holidays.
They did have a slight problem with the requested amount, though.
“Steve is such a numbers person,” said Julie Eugley, one of the author’s personal assistants. “When we were approached for $13,000, he thought that number was a little unlucky. He didn’t want any bad whammies associated with these troops.”
So instead the Kings donated $12,999 and Eugley chipped in the $1 to complete the request. That money will help pay for two bus trips — one from Camp Atterbury, Ind., to Portland, one from Camp Atterbury, Ind., to Bangor — for the soldiers of the Brewer-based 172nd, a division of the Maine Army National Guard.
Earlier this week, the unit departed from Maine for training at Camp Atterbury, Ind. They were scheduled to remain there until their January 2010 departure to Afghanistan, and even though they had a few days off for the holidays, they didn’t have the means to return home.
Thomas “Skip” Chappelle, who runs Operation Community Support — a Bangor-based military assistance nonprofit agency — thought something needed to be done. So he solicited the Kings for money.
Eugley stressed that the donation came from the Kings’ personal accounts and not through the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation, which does not donate for travel purposes.
“It was a pretty easy sell. I asked. Steve said yes,” Eugley said.
Operation Community Support, which Chappelle and other volunteers founded in 2003, incorporated as a nonprofit in 2007. The group seeks to ease the burden on deployed service members and their families statewide by coordinating sendoff ceremonies, buying Christmas gifts for military families and other efforts. The Kings’ $12,999 donation is the largest ever given to Operation Community Support.
“This is the best opportunity we’ve had to get the word out about what we do,” Chappelle said Friday. The buses will be operated by Notch Above Tours of Colchester, Vt. The round-trip cost for each bus is $8,350. In addition to the donation from the Kings, Chappelle said the Family Assistance Center of the Maine Army National Guard would provide the remainder.
Maj. Gen. John W. Libby, adjutant general of the Maine Army National Guard, said the guard always tries to ensure that soldiers come home for the holidays as time permits. The donation from the Kings certainly made that much more feasible this time.
The bus ride from Indiana to Maine is more than 15 hours one way, but for soldiers heading home to see families before spending a year in Afghanistan, the long trip is worth it. They’re expected in Bangor around Dec. 23 and will leave shortly after Christmas. “We all know what that does for soldiers and their families,” Chappelle said.
Members of the 172nd took part in an emotional sendoff ceremony on Monday at the University of Maine’s Collins Center for the Arts. The 172nd Infantry, which includes other companies from New England, will head overseas sometime after the first of the year as part of an Army brigade.
By early 2010, the Maine Army National Guard will have deployed about 50 percent of its force overseas to Iraq or Afghanistan. The 133rd Engineer Combat Battalion, with 540 soldiers, returned from Iraq in 2005 and tentatively is scheduled to re-deploy to Iraq in early March.
Since 2001, the Maine Army National Guard has sent more than 2,300 men and women to Iraq and Afghanistan. Nine have died.
He and his wife do an awful lot of good for the folks in Maine.
I’m good with it.
Langoliers One, your flight is ready
I think it’s funny that he’s apparently superstitious. You’d figure horror writers would be immune to that.
He and his wife do an awful lot of good for the folks in Maine.
From what I've heard of him he's a flaming lefty, but I certainly have to give King and his wife mega-kudos for this one.
Worst. Movie. Ever.
He and his wife do an awful lot of good for the folks in Maine.
Good on him.
Never having met the man personally, I can only say “Bravo!”
He gets my vote. It’s good to see that bazillionaires are still human.
A very good friend of the family used to own King's current house. She said that she had to jump through about a million hoops to get anything done to it, ever, because it's a part of the local historic register, or somesuch nonsense.
Anyhoo, Mr. King buys the house from her. First thing that he does is to tear out one of the walls to let out all of the evil spirits. :-) Money talks.
King is an odd duck, that's for sure. However, the number of stories like the one in this article are too many to count. My fav is the "Anonymous" 3 million dollar donation to the Bangor Public Library, when it was undergoing renovations. Anonymous. Yeah, right.
even bad for a TV movie
So what do you say this stephen king person who did something good for our troops and why is he unpopular on FR for doing it?
His political views are rather to the liberal side, but he deserves and gets credit for this.
Ok, but why are this guys political views any more important than any other smuck’s views. What else has he done besides give 13K for a good cause? And how do you know he’s a liberal? does he post here on FR and that is why?
Whatever I think of his politics and his writing of the past couple of decades, he and his wife are more generous to those in need than anyone I know of any political backround, for which they deserve sincere thanks. I couldn’t care less if people know about his generosity or if it’s anonymous, and neither do those who benefit from it.
King was unpopular on this web site for.....
(1) Saying that if our young people didn’t study hard, they would end up in the Army, implying that soldiers are stupid and uneducated
(2) Refusing to apologize for his offensive comments
(3) Calling Glen Beck “Satan’s mentally challenged younger brother”
(4) Supporting Obama in 2008, Kerry in 2004, Gore in 2000, etc.
King redeemed himself a bit by doing something nice for the troops at Christmas.
He is a lefty, but he has always put his money where his mouth is. He has a long history of giving very generously to the local community.
He did some ads or something for MoveOn.org, and donated money to them. I’ve ignored his existence ever since.
http://www.adrants.com/2006/10/stephen-king-uses-creepiness-to-promote.php
Probably too much to list here, of the giving that is publicly known. For years, every year I've heard of some large donation King has given to fund some public good in Maine, some millions to build a public swimming pool, millions to the university, millions to a library, building a little league stadium, fixing up YMCAs, giving scholarships, etc. And he doesn't want the facilities he funded to be named after him either.
I don't agree with his politics, which are well-known if you'd heard his public statements, and I don't like that he also gives to liberal causes. But nobody can doubt his generosity towards his fellow Maine residents.
So this King guy is a millionaire that has not done anything other than spend his money for some good things without wanting his name attached. I guess he must be one of those “silver spoon” folks who inherited daddies money and haven’t had to work in life, thus doesn’t know what it is to work, thus is a liberal. gotcha, another non-working liberal layabout who doesn’t do anything productive in life.
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