Team,
I hope this note finds you well. The event that we have waited for so long has finally arrived and we’re now officially back in business. We’ve had socks come in and socks go right back out again, and better still, we’ve heard from our friends forward, so we’ve got a lot of great things to report.
I’d like to thank all of you who’ve taken the time to help us last week. We’re grateful to all of you who took sponsorships, signed up to shoot and made a donation to make sure that a young American in harm’s way won’t have to worry about whether or not they have a fresh pair of socks in their seabag.
You’re really making a difference.
It finally happened. At 3PM on Monday, we received our first shipment of 10,000 pairs of socks! I am not saying that I was excited, but I spent the three days prior printing labels, building boxes for the units that we had to send through diplomatic mail boxes, making sure that we had enough tape, etc.
They arrive, and I am shown one more time that our dear friend Murphy was ready to issue us a citation. While assured that the boxes were the same size and weight, they were not. While I am not sure what the reason was, whether the boxes were thicker, or because we added material to the socks that they were heavier, what I did know was that I had 80 labels that didn’t have enough postage on them, so I had to have the post office refund them, and then start again. Carla and I move the boxes into the garage and get ready for the next day.
We start early and it goes quickly. We get a line going, stacking, sticking on labels, and loading. We re-box the ones for the Army in Iraq and we load some more. I go to the Post Office and ask where they would like me to put the boxes. The woman asks how many and I tell her. She walks over to the truck and her eyes get big. She gets her supervisor, he brings out some large containers and asks how many more I have, and I tell him, his eyes get big. He tells me that once I fill the containers to stack them and they’ll deal with it.
(If you’d like to see what that looked like, click here)
It takes three trips. The pile continues to grow. On my last trip they are getting ready to load them onto the truck to take to the main processing plant. As I’m leaving, I hear the driver of the truck ask “Socks for Heroes? Who are those guys?” I smile. Like the men and women, we serve, we prefer to remain faceless. It is the act that we care about, not any form of acclaim.
This brings the total number of socks we’ve shipped to 725,000 since May of 2011.
That night, I get home and I send notes out to the units letting them know that they have socks coming into their positions. That night, I receive a return note from the Commander of a Marine Battalion whose Marines are still in the thick of it. He writes:
“That’s great news and we’ll be sure to get some pictures.
Mr. Hogan – Thank you! I just read Donald’s Navy Cross citation and he was clearly an exceptional young man…I am truly sorry for your loss. The Socks for Heroes program is a wonderful way to honor his selfless service / sacrifice for his fellow Marines. SgtMaj – Here is the link to LCpl Hogan’s Navy Cross citation. Pls make sure this is read to all hands as the socks are being distributed amongst the companies so they can honor his memory.
(Too see the citation, click here
We are humbled again by the kindness of the men and women that we serve, in their willingness to continue to honor our son’s memory.
Soon after, I receive another note from a soldier who received some of our socks while his unit was deployed in Afghanistan. He writes:
“Any way I can buy socks?? We received some while I was deployed in Afghanistan. They are the best socks I ever had and I’m running out of them.”
Between the Commander honoring our son, and the soldier raving about the socks, I go to bed with a smile on my face, glad to know we’re making a difference.
While the country focuses inward on the coming election, the men and women who make that possible still stand the watch. We hope that you will help us provide for their continued support.
Please take a moment to donate by clicking here, or by taking a sponsorship or joining us to shoot at our upcoming fundraiser “America Shoots for Her Troops” on Saturday, November 14th at Raahauges by clicking here. It doesn’t take a lot to make a big difference in the lives of a young American serving in harm’s way.
Thanks for joining us in our position in this fight!
Jim Hogan
In memory of our son, LCPL Donald Hogan
Posthumously awarded the Navy Cross
KIA 8/26/2009 Nawa, Afghanistan
We honor his memory by caring for Americans wherever they serve in harm’s way.