Supporting soldiers and their loved ones

SOUL FOOD

“Be of good courage and He shall strengthen your heart, all you who

hope in the Lord.” -- Psalm 31, verse 24, counsels,

Two weeks ago, on Thursday night, I sat in a room with several

dozen parents whose soldier-children are far away, some in places

still unknown to their parents, readying for a war with Iraq. They

are doing their best to follow the psalmist’s sage advice.

At the First Christian Church on Main Street, they met for the

first time as Military Families United.

Amanda Graybill, the women’s minister at the church, founded the

group with the help of her friend, Sandi Layton. Their goal is to

provide encouragement, solace and resources to support our troops,

their families and their friends.

Both women have sons who are U.S. Marines, which is how they met.

Graybill was featured in a newspaper story about moms of Marines who

wanted to meet other Marine moms for mutual support. Layton called

her.

I heard about Military Families United a few days before its first

meeting. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. Though I tried.

I told myself it would be silly to go; I no longer have family in

the military. But I kept remembering the decades I did.

My father was a career Marine, a soldier during three wars. I was

a toddler by the time we first met. On Aug. 18, 1950, the day before

I was born, he left the U.S. for Korea.

He spent November and December in the Chosin Reservoir. He

survived that place -- of which it’s been said, “it was there that

hell indeed froze over” -- thousands did not.

If we were lonely, scared or broke while he was away from home on

duty, he’d tell us, “If the Marine Corps had wanted me to have a

family, they would have issued me one.” We were supposed to do what

Marines do. Suck it up.

I’m glad times seem to be changing, at least in that sense, for

our military families.

My father is now buried in the National Cemetery in Riverside.

Until I heard about Military Families United, it had been a long time

since I’d thought of myself as a member of a military family.

It was because I couldn’t shake the thoughts of families now

wearing the shoes my family and I once wore that I went to the

Thursday night meeting.

Graybill has accumulated a wealth of information and resources for

those who have family and friends in the military. She provided

handouts at the meeting and the same information, and more, will soon

be available on the group’s new, now under-construction Web site

www.militaryfamiliesunite .com.

From how to pack boxes that will make it to Kuwait, to what to

send, Graybill knows. One handout she has compiled offers simple

suggestions for supporting our troops and their families: Adopt a

member of the military to pray for individually through

www.presidentialprayerteam. org/troopsadopt.htm; light a candle

nightly for a soldier until he comes home; join a letter-writing

campaign to send letters to our soldiers. Many soldiers, Graybill

said, may not get anything other than those letters.

She would like to revive the use of yellow ribbons, popular

symbols of support for our troops in Persian Gulf, to express our

vigilant wait for our troops to return home.

The American Legion of Huntington Beach Post 133 is lending its

support and offering its resources. For a small donation to help

cover its costs, it is providing cotton Blue Star Service Banners --

a traditional symbol of a blue star on a white background with a red

boarder, for families with a child in service to display their home’s

window -- through its Web site www.hbpost133.org.

“[military Families United] isn’t just for families of the

military, not just for moms, it’s for people who want to be involved

in supporting our troops and supporting their families,” Graybill

said. “This group is to reach out to those families and the troops.”

Military Families United will hold its second meeting tonight. The

focus, Graybill said, will be on getting to know each other and on

letting people know about the ways they can be involved.

For more information about the group can call Amanda Graybill at

First Christian Church at (714) 536-2589.

* MICHELE MARR is a freelance writer from Huntington Beach. She

can be reached at [email protected].