Skip the hoax - there's a real way to thank to soldiers

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By Herb Weisbaum

Summary

It's a great idea -- send a Christmas card to a hero. That's the message in an e-mail making the rounds. But don't waste your time doing it.

Story Published: Dec 3, 2007 at 9:09 AM PDT

Story Updated: Jun 10, 2010 at 3:41 PM PDT

Skip the hoax - there's a real way to thank to soldiers

U.S. soldiers display thank-you cards received via the "Let's Say Thanks" web site.

It's a great idea -- send a Christmas card to a hero. That's the message in an e-mail making the rounds.

It says..."When you're making out your Christmas card list this year, please include the following: A Recovering American Soldier, c/o Walter Reed Army medical Center."

As I said, it's a wonderful thought, but don't waste your time doing it. A letter addressed this way won't be delivered.

Because of security concerns, the medical center can only accept mail made out to a specific soldier at the facility, per Department of Defense regulations. And because of privacy rules, they can't give out those names.

"The U.S. Postal Service has also been helping out by not accepting these letters, packages or cards," says Walter Reed Deputy Public Affairs Officer Terry Goodman. "But sometimes some will get to Walter Reed, and if they do they are returned to sender."

Goodman says you can send an electronic greeting to the recovering soldiers there. For instance, tens of thousands of text messages were sent around Thanksgiving.

"The soldiers really, really enjoy and love the support that they're getting from their fellow countrymen," Goodman tells me.

There are ways to get holiday greetings to support our troops around the world.
Walter Reed suggests visiting the "American Supports You" Web site, where you can make a donation to one of the more than 300 non-profit organizations dedicated to helping U.S. troops and their families.

Getting holiday cards from back home can be a big morale booster. There's a simple and free way to do that.

Just go to Let'sSayThanks.com, a site set up by Xerox employees.

Carl Langsenkamp, Director of Public Relations at Xerox says there are 53 different cards, all drawn by kids across the country, to choose from.

"You click on one, you fill out a form, you could put a personalized message in it, you send it to us, we print it out on our technology and we work with a non-profit group to ship the cards overseas to the troops."

Xerox says about 10-million cards have been sent overseas since the site went online about a year and a half ago.

The Postal Service Web site also lists ways to support our troops.

"And we've been putting up cards and photos that the troop members send back to us holding up the cards and actually some of the messages that are coming back from the troops saying thank you to people for writing messages to them."

You can post greetings on the "To Our Soldiers"message board.

You can also donate a USO Care package via the USO Web site.

For More Information:

Don't send a card to a recovering soldier