"If you know someone who's serving there, write to them; write often; write regularly."

USS Clueless ^ | Nov. 19, 2003 | Steven Den Beste

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

USS Clueless ~ Steven Den Beste

 

Blogger Steven Den Beste responded yesterday to a reader's concern about potential suicides among our troops stationed in Iraq with an 'actuarial' explanation of the higher suicide rate among US civilians ~ and advice on one sure way to lift the spirits of our troops serving overseas*:

 

Another thing that helps is mail from home. It's perfectly fine if it's mundane and trite; it's a link back to normalcy for the soldiers. If you know someone who's serving there, write to them; write often; write regularly. Tell them what's happening in your life. Don't wait for something big to happen; keep writing. A letter from home is a lifeline, a promise that all the insanity around the soldier will eventually end, and a way of keeping hold of what "normal" life is like, because after a while it starts getting hard to remember. It also tells the soldier that someone cares, that he isn't just a piece of a machine, but still a person that someone misses. And when that mail stops coming, that lifeline breaks and hangs limp, leaving that soldier adrift, abandoned. So keep writing.

Even if he doesn't write back. He's busy, you know; there's a war to fight. email is good, but paper mail is better; soldiers carry their letters from home with them, and reread them when the situation is getting them down.

Don't write to him about what he's doing; he knows what he's doing. Write to him about the stuff he wishes he could do but can't: write about movies you've gone to see, and how your favorite football team should draw and quarter its quarterback but still managed to pull it out and win the big game, and about trips to the store, and what you bought, and about people you've talked to, and why the new television season is the worst ever. Think "Lileks writing about Gnat" and write about that kind of stuff. Write about all the things that you take for granted that a soldier in a combat zone can't do. He can read your letter, and vicariously do them through you. As he's reading, he's home again, if only for a few minutes. And he will read it, more than once.

There's never enough mail from home.

 

 

*Mr. Den Beste adds: "By the way, two things which will reduce the suicide rate a lot are bars and brothels, but we can't encourage either of those in Iraq."

[VOA]

Sunday bump for exposure

[VOA]

Burn-Thursday's-Calories-on-Friday-Shopping-For-Military- Carepackages...
BUMP!

[VOA]

bump for publicity

[VOA]

A hope-y'all-are-having-a-great-Thanksgiving-Day...
and on Friday pick up some goodies to ship to a service-person BEFORE the December 4th deadline...
BUMP!!!

[VOA]

bump

[VOA]

pardon the side-bar:

Dear lurkers/posters...Pass The Word!

Dubya DELIVERED the turkey and the morale-injection...time for us to
deliver the goods for the next holiday!!!

Deadline for mailing military carepackages for Christmas delivery is DECEMBER 4TH!

(and we all know in our hearts those Christmas packages MUST be there by/before December 24th...
shhh...don't tell the children...)

For info, see threads at there URLs:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1023324/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1003802/posts

[VOA]

bump

[VOA]

outta-here for the evening bump

[VOA]

bump for exposure