Posted on 08/26/2009 4:49:37 PM PDT by SandRat
HELMAND PROVINCE, Afghanistan — Some people will walk up to Marines in public and shake their hands to say ‘thank you’ for their service. Others take it a few steps further by saying their thanks on hundreds of feet of paper.
George and Shirley Jackson of Denton, Md., have been mailing scrolls of thanks to deployed troops for nearly 15 years. Most recently, they sent a 521-foot scroll of patriotic messages of thanks to Marines here. Messages like “Thank you for your service,” or “You rock and watch out for missiles,” cover just about every inch. The scroll was posted on the walls in Dining Facility 2.
“Just saying thanks isn’t enough for them,” said Staff Sgt. Jason L. Carter, transmission supervisor, Regimental Combat Team 3. “We as leaders can tell our guys thanks, but seeing it from people back home has a great meaning for the Marines.”
George said in an email, he does this as a way to thank troops for what they do for their country day in and day out.
They started their latest scroll Feb. 7, and it took six weeks to fill it. George hand delivered the scroll to elementary schools along the Delaware and Maryland coastline, and the students and faculty drew pictures and wrote various messages. But he doesn’t just visit schools, he has also staged signing tables at hardware stores for customers to write their motivating messages from home.
The Jacksons completed their first scroll in 1995 and sent it to troops in Bosnia for Christmas. George said he has lost track of how many scrolls he has sent over the years, but last year he sent 21 rolls – 18 to U.S. troops and three to Australians. He has also sent scrolls to British and Canadian soldiers and currently is working on two others that are half full.
He mentioned, 10 years after his first scroll, a lady approached one of his signing tables and gave him a big hug, saying she was in Bosnia in 1995 and saw his banner. She said she had been waiting a long time to hug the person that sent the scroll.
“It really speaks volumes about his character,” Carter said about George’s efforts.
Even after George’s cardiologist suggested he stop trekking the heavy rolls of paper and 20-pound tables around two years ago, he continues to pump them out.
In his email, he said getting word that troops have received his scrolls and that the messages brought smiles to the troops’ faces is heart medicine enough.
Maryland PING!
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