The Summer Edition of ON PATROL Magazine is now available online and one of our favorite articles is the Poet’s Corner, which begins on page 60 of the digital and print editions.
We’d like to share with you one of the poems – “Brothers and Sisters” – penned by Sergeant Jack Eubanks, USMC. We hope you’ll take the time to read the rest of the magazine, and if you’re interested in home delivery of an annual subscription, please call 1-888-966-7287.
Griff Jenkins of Fox News and Sloan Gibson, president and CEO of the USO, enjoy conversation with the wounded warriors at the vineyard vines-USO Tied to a Cause reception in Georgetown, Washington, DC, June 22, 2010. (USO photo by Katherine Ruddy)
By Samantha Quigley, Senior Editor, ON PATROL
For a few hours on Tuesday night two wounded warriors and their wives escaped to the Vineyard.
The USO and vineyard vines hosted a reception at the retailer’s Georgetown location in Washington, D.C., to celebrate being “Tied to a Cause.”
Tied to a Cause, a campaign through vineyard vines recognizes the efforts of community and grassroots organizations. This month, Tied to a Cause is supporting the USO’s Operation Enduring Care, an initiative to create a national network of care and support for America’s wounded warriors and their families. Proceeds from the sale of the custom USO-vineyard vines ties and totes will be donated to the USO.
The wounded warriors and their wives enjoyed a vineyard vines makeover at the start of the evening and mingled with more than 100 friends of the military, vineyard vines, and the USO, including USO President Sloan Gibson, Fox News’s Griff Jenkins, and the late Tim Russert’s son, Luke.
Perhaps the highlight of the evening, however, was the warriors and Gibson each signing two ties. One will join the many others hanging as decoration in the Georgetown store. The other will be displayed in the USO Arlington office.
The promotion will last through the Fourth of July weekend, with receptions also happening in Connecticut, New York, and Massachusetts.
To see more photos, please visit our flickr gallery and enjoy the video below!
Tagged donations, ON Patrol, Vineyard Vines, wounded warriors
Originally posted by Jeremy Borden for the ON PATROL blog:
The annual GI Film Fest celebrates the “successes and sacrifices of the American military through the medium of film.” One of those films was Honor in the Valley of Tears, which tells the story of the Army’s A-Company during the Vietnam War.
Summary by Writer-Director Eric S. Dow:
The story of A-Company 1/8 4th Infantry Division, US Army during the Vietnam War from 1965 to 1967. In the men’s own words, through the stories they narrate, the film gives us insight into the time these men spent together and the bond they formed that remains unbroken to this day. The 4th Infantry Division is one of the only divisions that trained and retained its troops during the Vietnam War. The men of A-Company trained together for eleven months and served together for one year. Their story begins with basic training at Ft. Lewis Washington in 1965 and continues 40 years later at their last reunion in September 2007. Filming began September 27, 2007 in Houston, Texas during a reunion to honor First Sergeant David H. McNerney, who is the only living member of the 4th Infantry Division to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor. He was celebrated by the men he trained and served with and who’s lives he saved on March 22, 1967. Conceived by executive producer John A. Ponsoll, whose father served with A-Company and had documented his tour of duty with a Kodak slide camera, the film honors the memory of A-Company 1/8 and documents their incredible courage and dedication to one another.
We caught up with the filmmakers and the hero of the film, former First Sergeant David H. McNerney.
ON PATROL, the magazine of the USO, is entering its second year of publication. The quarterly magazine, which is distributed to more than 300,000 readers, features stories of inspiration and sacrifice.
We were recently notified that ON PATROL received three prestigious communication’s honors from MERCURY Excellence Awards. This year’s competition featured around 700 entries in 20 categories from 21 countries across the world.
ON PATROL earned a gold medal in the magazine category for military support organizations; a silver medal in the magazine writing category; and a bronze medal for design.
From the beginning, ON PATROL has garnered admiration from its readers.
The magazine continues to feature outstanding writers, who contribute on a range of subjects from the special facial reconstruction efforts performed by a plastic surgeon in California to a description of golf analyst David Feherty’s “Inspiring Explosive Days,” giving wounded warriors a chance to golf with professionals, participate in long bicycle rides or hunt together.
The magazine also inspired. The Summer 2009 cover featured a note from LT “J” a Navy SEAL who had been seriously wounded in battle. Unable to talk, he had penned a letter from his hospital bed, and his wife displayed the message prominently on his room door.
“If you are coming into this room with sorrow or to feel sorry for my wounds, GO ELSEWHERE,” the note reads in part. “The wounds I received, I got in a job I love, doing it for people I love, supporting the freedom of a country I deeply love.”
And readers responded.
“I would like permission to send a copy of that letter to my friends in order to heighten their awareness of who is keeping them free and the attitudes of those who have sacrificed for them,” Claudia Thomas wrote.
ON PATROL also received feedback from the field. Chaplains in Balad are using the magazine in devotionals, while troops in Afghanistan are sending us updates from the front lines.
We’re extremely proud of the progress made by ON PATROL in its inaugural year, and we look forward to bringing more outstanding stories to you in the future.
For the bards of the front lines and the word minstrels on the home front, ON PATROL, the magazine of the USO, is seeking combat poetry that captures a service member’s experience both overseas and stateside for an upcoming article. ON PATROL also may include it in its 300,000-circulation magazine!
There are no length or form restrictions, but the work must be original, the author must hold the copyright, and authors grant the USO and ON PATROL the right to reprint in either a print or online format.
Please send submissions to EditorOnPatrol@USO.org by March 30. Include full name, rank and unit number [if applicable] and contact information. Please use the world “combat poetry” in the subject line.
We look forward to being inspired, and so offer a bit of inspiration to get the creative thoughts flowing.
SILENT PATRIOT
Author Unknown
A woman for all seasons
A woman for today.
She grows to meet the challenges
And grows along the way.
Her life is not an easy one
With many loads to bear.
But she proudly serves her husband
And the uniform he wears.
Although she didn’t take the oath
To preserve democracy
She’s there each day on the home front
To keep our country free.
She’s foreign-born or a country girl,
Diversity you will find.
But to be an army wife
It takes a special kind.
She’s one who keeps on going
Through adversity and pain.
She’s the steady, strong foundation
When nothing stays the same.
She’s the one who sheds a tear
As Old Glory passes by,
But couldn’t give a answer
If you were to ask her why.
Throughout the years, she marches on
Through tears and joy and strife.
She’s America’s unsung hero-
She’s a military wife.
From the desk of Jeremy Borden, USO Staff Writer:
Army Lieutenant Colonel Marc Hoffmeister says his whole experience with National Geographic has been one surprise after the other. But none was bigger than learning that he’d tied for first place as the organization’s Adventurer of the Year.
Hoffmeister, who was wounded in a roadside blast in Iraq in 2007, organized a group of wounded warriors to climb Mount McKinley, also known as Denali, the highest mountain peak in North America in June 2009.
Lieutenant Colonel Marc Hoffmeister summits Denali. DoD photo.
He said he was more than a little shocked to be named one of the magazine’s Adventurers of the Year. “I frankly was pretty surprised to even be ranked amongst them,” he said from his home in Eagle River, Alaska.
It also shocked him that readers honored him as their Readers’ Choice Adventurer of the Year on Thursday.
He credits his team — the accomplishment is a group one, he says — but can’t put his finger on what put his story above the rest. “I don’t know what singled us out at all,” he said.
Hoffmeister went up against accomplished adventurers, like the astronaut known as “the Hubble repairman,” and tied for first place in the readers’ choice contest with Albert Yu-Min Lin, who organized a treacherous expedition into Mongolia to search for the lost tomb of Genghis Khan.
As Hoffmeister and Lin pulled away from the pack in the competition’s last weeks, the soldier wondered what his chances were.
“It’s the modern age of technology. You ‘Google’ the competition,” Hoffmeister said.
When he found out about Lin’s University of California-San Diego connections, he joked he was worried that “[Lin’s] got the whole school at his disposal. Can’t you just [take students] to the computer lab every other day and vote?”
Despite what he considered steep odds, Hoffmeister organized and assembled his own social network. Army officials and even senators gravitated to his story, helping put the word out through e-mail chains, news stories and social media Web sites. Hoffmeister knew it was working when he started hearing from long lost friends.
But it was Hoffmeister’s story of four wounded warriors training for a year and spending a month summiting a treacherous peak that resonated around the country. When Hoffmeister was beginning his own recovery, he knew the mountain climb could change wounded warriors’ lives. But first, he had his own burdens to over come…Read the full blog post from “On the Frontlines” and see Army Lieutenant Colonel Marc Hoffmeister’s full story online at ON★PATROL, the magazine of the USO.
Posted in Recognition, Troops
Tagged award, From the Desk of, marc hoffmeister, National Geographic, ON Patrol, operation denali, veterans
