Make your good deeds delicious
This news article was forwarded to me recently, with a simple note attached: “This is disappointing.”
The essence of the article is contained in its first three paragraphs (which is not always the case in modern journalism, by the way, but that’s a topic for another day):
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of holiday cards and letters thanking wounded American troops for their sacrifice and wishing them well never reach their destination. They are returned to sender or thrown away unopened.
Since the September 11 attacks and the anthrax scare, the Pentagon and the Postal Service have refused to deliver mail addressed simply to “Any Wounded Soldier” for fear terrorists or opponents of the war might send toxic substances or demoralizing messages.
Mail must be addressed to a specific member of the armed forces — a rule that pains some well-meaning Americans this Christmas season.
Yes, it’s disappointing. But it’s also understandable, especially when you read this paragraph from the same article:
Last season, despite the rule, officials say as many as 450,000 pieces of mail not addressed to anyone in particular managed to reach Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. But they were returned or, if they had no return address, were thrown out altogether, because the hospital lacked the manpower to open and screen all the mail, spokesman Terry Goodman said.
That’s a lot of mail cascading into one hospital in just a few short weeks.
I don’t have a feel for how much a card addressed to “Any Wounded Soldier” would actually mean to a wounded soldier. Maybe it would mean a lot. But I suspect that the reaction would be something like that of my son and his fellow Marines to similar offerings they received during their recent tour in Iraq. One such letter, from a special-needs child who’d written as part of a class project, was particularly entertaining — largely because the youngster, who spent much of his letter rhapsodizing about his favorite breakfast meat, included the memorable phrase, “Bacon is delicious!”
My son reports that those words became an oft-repeated mantra in his squad. (You can almost hear them: “What are we fighting for, men? Bacon!”) The other letters? Well, they were, uh, nice.
In contrast, packages from family members and friends, with useful, digestible or readable items inside, were highly valued. I’ll bet the same is true for wounded warriors. My advice — not that you asked for it, but I’ll give it to you anyway — is to find a specific injured soldier or Marine and send him a holiday package. If you don’t know one, ask around. There are not as many degrees of separation as you might think. The number of military people wounded in action in Iraq is closing in on 30,000. Thousands more have fallen to accidents or illness.
Unless you’re a handicapped kid with a jones for bacon, that’s the best way to make your outreach memorable.