And you'll finally see the truth That a hero lies in you

To everyone that helped to send the Frito Pie boxes to my son's troop....a big THANK YOU!!! We received a phone call from our son on December 23rd from a very happy soldier and his troop!! They were in the middle of eating all their Frito Pies. Many of them were going on missions on December 25th so they had their Christmas Party early.

Our son's captain was so impressed and couldn't believe what had been done that he wished that he could come down and thank all of us in person. Being that he couldn't do that, he gave our son the next best thing; a Challenge Coin. He said he is going to send that down to us and we will share that honor with all of you who helped us to get all of these boxes to these soldiers so they could have their Christmas Wish.

The first things to go were the Jalapenos! We sent 2 pounds of those and probably should have sent more! Who knew? Although they didn't have an electric can opener and had to open all the chili cans with what looked like a razor blade on a stick, all went well and those that never even knew what a Frito Pie was has now enjoyed this delicious treat!

We can't thank all of you enough for pulling together in truly the matter of a little over 24 hours what ya'll were able to do!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

That's the Way, Uh-Huh, Uh-Huh, I Like It

My son received all the boxes for his troop in Afghanistan! All the fritos, chili, cheese, jalopenos, Ding Dongs, Twinkies, Oatmeal Cookies and we can't forget the 1200 Slim Jims!! We couldn't have done it without a LOT of help. I can't thank everyone enough for helping us to pull this off for them!!

Here is what he sent to me:

We will have an Immense, Scrumptious Christmas Thanks to everyone... Everyone that has never had one of these Delicacy's are anxious to try one.. and All those that Love them cannot wait either... so this will be one of the more historical christmas's in Kandahar, Afghanistan...
ONCE AGAIN THE BROWN FAMILY PULLS THROUGH...
Thanks Again...








Thank all of them for me and The 451st AEW

Brenda and Hank Pfeifer
Shelley and John Troy
Joy and Paul Burwell
Marieann Wise-Miu and George Wise
Jennifer Tough
Molly, Mike and Mackenzie Goode
Angela Kicklighter and Grammy
Sue Dixon
Kim and Greg Kelly and family
Dan Tripper
Charles William
Carolyn and Steve Wong and family
Nick Banfield
Melissa Singleton and family
Amy and George Sowers
Renee Cannon
Katherine Navarra and family
Tom Lockhart
Tania and Charles Johnson and family
Tony Klepper
Oleta Baldridge

--
SrA BROWN

Food! Glorious Food!

Those of you who know me, know that I have three sons in the military. Two are in the Air Force, one is a Marine. I know that there are many other families just like me out there and we are so proud of every single one of them! My Marine is now stateside after serving a tour in Iraq and one of my sons is also stationed here as well. But my second oldest is serving his second tour, this time in Afghanistan, the first one being in Iraq two years ago.

A few weeks before Thanksgiving we spoke to him and during that conversation we found out that their Thanksgiving dinner was going to consist of powdered turkey and canned yams and their Christmas dinner wasn't going to be much better.

Where he is stationed, they don't have microwaves or a decent kitchen that has regular ovens or stoves. They have solar ovens to cook food. So, the food they eat isn't the greatest! But, what him and his troop of 100 soldiers really wanted for their Christmas dinner this year was Frito Pies!

First, we tried contacting Frito Lay. The person we spoke to in customer service wasn't all that welcome to the idea and we got a form letter in return of sorry, we don't do that kind of thing. Now, it was up to us and our deadline was fast approaching to do something to make sure we could get Frito Pies to them in time.

I came up with an idea in that, there were 11 soldiers in my son's unit and if we sent each of those soldiers at least two Priority Flat Rate boxes of Frito Pie fixin's it would only cost around $35 to feed 10 solders. Surely we could find enough people to sponsor two boxes per soldier!

I put out a call to my closest friends, my Soap Team and my daughter's castmates at Stage Right and within 24 hours we had more than enough to not only get them their Frito Pies, but dessert and enough Slim Jims to feed all 100 of them! Plus, one of the cast members brought in enough Beanie Babies to fill two Priority Boxes to send over to Afghanistan to hand out to the children there and will be delivered to the Humanitarian division!




I cannot thank everyone ENOUGH for their help and response in making sure these soldiers get their Frito Pie Christmas Dinner! I will continue to update my blog when they receive their packages and I am sure we will hear from them very soon!

A special thanks goes out to:

Brenda and Hank Pfeifer
Shelley and John Troy
Joy and Paul Burwell
Marieann Wise-Miu and George Wise
Jennifer Tough
Molly, Mike and Mackenzie Goode
Angela Kicklighter and Grammy
Sue Dixon
Kim and Greg Kelly and family
Dan Tripper
Charles William
Carolyn and Steve Wong and family
Nick Banfield
Melissa Singleton and family
Amy and George Sowers
Renee Cannon
Katherine Navarra and family
Tom Lockhart
Tania and Charles Johnson and family
Tony Klepper
Oleta Baldridge

From the bottom of our hearts THANK YOU!

The Brown family