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Soldier visits Walnut Grove pen pal
Published July 27, 2005
WALNUT GROVE — For Kathy Orr, it was better than winning the Mega-Millions lottery on Christmas Day.
For five years, Kathy has “adopted” soldiers who are deployed overseas. Mailing letters and sending an occasional e-mail to U.S. soldiers in Kosovo, Afghanistan and different parts of Iraq, Kathy just knew that these soldiers needed some encouragement and support.
“One soldier told me that getting mail from home is like getting a mini-vacation in an envelope, a touch of normalcy in the midst of insanity,” Kathy said.
Kathy said that 90 percent of the time, she never hears back from the soldiers. But it never slows her down because her support is 100 percent unconditional and she feels compelled to let them know that they are not forgotten. Over the weekend, Kathy and her family welcomed one of her many faceless “adopted” sons.
“I was stunned. Never in a million years did I even remotely think that we would be on his list of people to see,” Kathy said about the visit from Sgt. Christopher Missick.
Missick returned in March after being deployed as an Army Reservist from California to Iraq and Operation Iraqi Freedom. While in Iraq, Missick received letters throughout his tour and countless more words of support through his blog. But it was the letters that touched him the most. In a letter he wrote to Orr, he said that he kept many of the letters he received that came from the heart and carried them with him in small boxes as he moved from camp to camp. Often he read the letters when he needed a morale boost.
When he returned home, Missick said he was “overwhelmed with the urge to meet many of the people who took the time to show their support for the Armed Forces by sending letters and care packages.” From that was born the idea to embark on a cross-country endeavor he said to “discover the heart of American patriotism” and to thank those who supported him.
Missick’s journey to discover the “web of support” began July 17 in Sacramento, Calif. and he made a pit-stop in Georgia to visit Orr and her family Saturday. Once it is all said and done, Missick plans to write a book or a “unique memoir” that will be both a narrative of his experience during wartime but also an introspective look at what Americans have done and can do to help support the armed forces. It will be his way of showing what some individuals around the country were doing to display their patriotism in a time of war.
How it all began
About four of five years ago, Orr was surfing the Internet and stumbled across a site called Adopt-a-Platoon (www.adoptaplatoon.org) — a site for volunteers to commit to sending at least one letter per week to the “adopted” son or daughter for the entire duration of their deployment. The purpose of the group, according to Orr, was to provide unconditional, tangible support and encouragement to deployed soldiers. Her first adoptee was a woman stationed in Kosovo. In one of only a handful of e-mails sent to Orr by the soldier, she requested that Orr continue to write but to a sergeant who was staying behind. The soldier made the request because the sergeant did not receive much mail at all and his morale was reaching a low point. Orr continued to write until the sergeant’s tour was up and then took some months off.
Then Sept. 11 happened.
Orr immediately signed up again with Adopt-a- Platoon and has been adopting ever since.
It has also become a family affair as well. Orr’s four children often color pictures for her to send to the troops. Orr said that the troops love “kid drawings,” a sentiment echoed by Missick. Being so far away from their own families and children, receiving something written by or made by a child carries special meaning with it.
Often when she talks with the troops, it is about her life, “boring as it may be” Orr added. But she was quick to point out that to the troops, what the public often thinks is mundane and boring to them is a little treasure and they often times miss the boring details of life. Talking with her “adopted” children, Orr tells them about her work (for an aviation attorney) and how she is going part-time to college and working on an English degree. Orr talks about her hopes to land in law school one day and stories about what her kids Tiffany, 11, Jacob, 9, Kathryn, 4, or Jeff Jr., 2, had to offer for that day. She also sends them jokes and light-hearted, funny stories to give those surrounded by a desolate desert a bit of cheer.
Getting others involved
Be it her birthday, her anniversary, Mother’s Day — all Orr asks for is a roll of 100 stamps.
“I don’t care about jewelry or whatever else,” Orr said. “Just give me stamps so I can keep writing to my guys.”
Her fervor is contagious.
Orr’s church, the Orchard United Methodist Church, also works with her in supporting the soldiers. Four times a year, Orr asks Pastor Ben Cathey for permission to set up a table in the lobby to collect cards to send to her “adopted” soldiers. For the Fourth of July, Orr collected almost 100 cards to send to Iraq. For Halloween last year, Orr and her church collected over 30 pounds of candy to send to a platoon.
There are several Web sites dedicated to helping those interested in finding blogs written by troops. Missick said that this was and still is a growing trend as more and more soldiers arrived over in Iraq. Some of the Web sites that can be used to find “milblogs” or soldier blogs are:
www.bloggersforfreedom.com
www.iraqfiles.com
www.stevenkiel.blogspot.com
www.indepundit.com
www.soldierlife.com
However, with Internet access still sporadic at best in Iraq, and with the certain degree of emotional boost offered by the tangible letter, both Missick and Orr say that snail mail is the best way to go.
The meeting
Orr sat and waited with nervous energy on Saturday, waiting for Missick’s arrival.
“I am going to warn you — I am probably going to cry,” Orr said.
Not even a week into his journey, Missick has already fallen a day behind. His original arrival date was supposed to be Friday, but traveling cross-country in a mini van, spending time with so many people and families, delays were inevitable.
Orr, her husband Jeff, and two of her four kids — Jeff. Jr. and Tiffany — await the arrival of Missick Saturday afternoon. Orr frets about him having to wait in traffic coming in from Alabama. She brings out her scrapbook of her collections of correspondence with troops and on her computer is a picture of one of her “adopted” sons.
Somewhere around 3:30 p.m., a maroon mini van came up the street and nervously, already holding back tears, Orr says, “They’re here.”
Out steps Missick, and with him were Ryan Albaugh and Kyle Rodgers. Albaugh served in Iraq with Missick.
“I didn’t really think that he would end up going through with it,” Albaugh said. “He called me about a month ago and said that he lined things up and the trip was a go. I said ‘Sign me up.’”
Rodgers, who has been friends with Missick since college, said he joined his friend to do whatever he can to help.
When Missick was completely out of the car, Orr gave him what could only be described as an embrace a mother would give to her son after having not seen him for years on end. Prior Orr calling Missick to see when he would arrive, she had never heard his voice. Prior to Missick stepping out of that mini van, Orr had never seen Missick. But the embrace and emotions involved gave no indication of this being a first meeting. Sitting in the Orr’s living room, Missick answered questions and regaled his audience of stories of life both at home and overseas. With a smile on his face, Missick found a little slice of Americana to include in his book.
The project
The arrival of Missick to Walnut Grove was hardly even a halfway point despite having already traveled over 3,200 miles. The trip includes stops in 18 states with the bulk of them up and down the eastern seaboard.
In addition to Walnut Grove, Missick and company will also stop off in Augusta before continuing their trek north. Along the way, Rodgers videotapes the journey and Albaugh takes pictures with the camera he got before going overseas to serve with Missick in Iraq. Missick said that he has taken notes along the way but has not even thought of a title or a direction for the book. He is just taking it all in right now.
“I want to use the experience of these patriots and tell that story,” Missick said, quickly down playing his role and putting in the forefront that of those who supported him. “I want to show the little things that are being done that are so important. These people are also making a sacrifice to help someone else.”
Missick said that it is good to meet the people who he said he knew their hearts before he met them. Every stop along the way has provided highlights with each stop offering its own character and slice of American life. Missick said that he chose Orr and the others starting with going to his e-mail inbox.
He also went through the postcards and letters he received and made his decision based on those who wrote from the heart and then geographically, choosing a representative part of the country.
“It is almost hard to describe the importance, the overwhelming emotions that this all had in me making it through my tour,” Missick said about all of the support he received.
Missick said that he started his blog as a way to keep in touch with his family and friends and didn’t really anticipate a lot of people reading it.
But a time when negative feelings and stories were floating around, Missick thinks that people were searching out for an alternative and many stumbled upon his site. And things evolved from there.
“This trip, all of the support, all of the people involved, this stuff doesn’t have any monetary value,” Missick said. “I was showing a different face of soldier life.”
And now, with his book, he hopes to show a different side of war.
Back on the road
The Orr family and Missick and company dined at the Blue Willow Inn Saturday night. Orr said that people came up and thanked the soldiers and talked with them throughout the evening.
That night, Missick and his friends camped out at the Orr home and after a huge breakfast, were back on the road Sunday morning.
“In the weeks and days leading up to this, I had no problem telling the world about this. But now I am at a loss for words to describe what this all meant to me. To actually be able to say thank you in person, to be able to treat them to a nice dinner as a gesture of appreciation, just means the world to me and my family,” Orr said.
Orr keeps a scrapbook in which she saves all the correspondence she gets. And she still posts her words of encouragement on blogs every week. Now she can add to that book one of the most memorable days of her life. And to Missick and those stationed overseas, what Orr and others like her are doing means the world to them.
Anyone who reads this is encouraged by both Orr and Missick to offer support and help make some of the most difficult days of a soldier’s life a little bit easier to endure.
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