'Holiday Cards for Heroes' event draws crowd
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on November 15, 2014 10:38 PM
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News-Argus/ETHAN SMITH
Christopher Webb, 916th Air Refueling Wing Chaplain, signed several cards at Friday's "Holiday Mail for Heroes" event.
Many enlisted servicemen and women will not get to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with their families.
So Friday, the Red Cross teamed up with Seymour Johnson Air Force Base to make that separation slightly more bearable.
All it takes is a card.
Cards signed during an event hosted on base will be sent to deployed troops, veterans, retired members of the military and military members currently living in the local community.
"At Thanksgiving, there's an empty seat at the table. At Christmas, there's an empty chair in the living room," said Josh Cain with the Red Cross. "One of the natures of military service is being away from your family at a time when everybody else is coming together."
After the cards were signed, they were dropped into paper-mache airplanes crafted by Kathy Gilmour, the wife of 916th Air Refueling Wing Commander Col. Gregory Gilmour.
Mrs. Gilmour was "the brains behind the operation," her husband said.
Tech Sgt. Melissa Wurster said she came to the event to "share some good will with airmen that are deployed."
Airman Brandon Owens accompanied her -- and said he missed Christmas and New Year's with his family while he was in basic training, and wanted to show his fellow airmen that he cared about them even though they had to be separated from their families.
Gilmour said he was once deployed with the Navy over the holidays and, while it "stinks," deployed servicemembers try to make the best of it.
"I was a helicopter pilot at the time, so I dressed up in a Santa suit over my flight suit and landed on several ships to deliver mail to these guys out at sea," Gilmour said. "It sucks being out at sea or deployed over the holidays, be we made fun out of it."
Red Cross Executive Director Vicki LaBelle said in the six years the organization has been doing "Holiday Mail for Heroes," more than 6.5 million letters have been delivered to servicemen and women.
"This is a way for folks to give something that means something," she said.