Hello!
It’s been awhile since I sent a “HOOAH Happenings” email, and of course, there’s a lot to cover. So….without further waiting:
First, I want to thank everyone who has contributed links to the website, added soldiers for ‘adoption’ and biographies, donated to our postage fund, made bows and signs, came out in the rain to cheer us on in the parade (!), and supported the Hooah site. None of this could be done without you, and ‘thank you’ doesn’t really cover it sufficiently.
A big WELCOME HOME to the 1-169th, who returned safely after a year’s deployment on Friday August 6, 2010. We’re proud of you and happy to have you home. And WELCOME HOME as well to PO3 Erin Bowles, whose ship returned to port on July 28, 2010 upon completion of their deployment in the Global War on Terror.
A few upcoming events:
Saturday August 14, 2010 – the Memorial Motorcycle Run in memory of LCpl Philip A. Johnson takes place. Please visit their website to learn more details (www.pjrun.org)
LCpl Johnson was killed in action on September 3, 2006 at the age of nineteen and this run benefits both the Westover Young Marines, which he was a member of, and the Wounded Warrior Project.
*****
On Saturday August 21, 2010 , the American Legion on Enfield St will be hosting a concert to benefit the Wounded Warrior Project. The event is from 12pm-3pm. The band is Title 10, which one of our local firemen is the drummer for. Tickets are $10.00 each and ALL proceeds are donated to the Wounded Warrior Project. This event is being held throughout the country.
For tickets, see Pat Gallo at SPFD 860-749-8552.
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A heartfelt CONGRATULATIONS to Christopher Bergendahl, who was recently promoted to Sergeant while serving overseas….
HOOAH!
And so, as always, thank you to each and every one of you who supports our men and women in uniform, past and present…politics aside, we’re all in this together, and we can’t let those who are deployed, retired, serving, or lost to be forgotten in any way.
We welcome submissions of biographies and new soldiers to adopt. We will have an information and fundraising booth at ShopRite one Sunday per month, and for August that will be Sunday 8/29/10; also, there will be a “hooah” booth on the town green at the Family Day event on Sunday September 19th , so if you’re out and about, please stop by and say hello. And, as always, you can reach me on the www.EnfieldHooah.org site, or by email at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
Until next time….
- Lori
“…We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Anyone who has studied basic American history recognizes these words spoken so many years ago by our forefathers. And today those words remind us of the struggle and strife that still remains throughout our world while we in the United States celebrate our Independence. Many of our soldiers and sailors, whether they be in Iraq, Kosovo, Kuwait, Germany, Haiti, or Afghanistan, will feel in their hearts the celebrations of our nation many miles away from where they are stationed while they continue the pursuit of these Rights for others less fortunate in foreign lands.
God Bless the United States of America, and God Bless her troops who stand tall and brave in the face of all enemies so that others may live free.
Happy 4th of July everyone!
Greetings!!!
I am beyond pleased to report that the joint venture between Enfield Hooah and the Enfield Little League was a success. The coaches, parents, and players really embraced the spirit of community support and collected (and are still collecting, as of this writing) on average twenty to twenty five pounds of care package items per team per game for our deployed people from Enfield! I am so proud to put these parcels together and include notes and drawings and signed game balls…thank you, everyone, for your enthusiasm and support of our troops.
On that note, if you, your child, your grandchild, plays on some type of team or has a civic group that might be interested in doing something similar, please let me know.
Some of our soldiers are rotating out of the care package program because they are finally returning home (yay!!!)…if you know someone who is headed out for their deployment, please let them know about the Hooah site and the soldier adoption program. The more the merrier.
When I look at my calendar, I can’t believe how the time flies. Memorial Day is upon us already (although I suspect that if you ask Ted Plamondon about how it ‘snuck up on us’ he’d have a different story, since he spends so many months planning our wonderful parade and ceremony). Enfield’s Memorial Day parade promises to be the best and largest ever, and will step off on Enfield Street on Sunday, May 30th at 1:00PM. I know that the folks that are reading this message don’t need me to say this, but it sure doesn’t hurt to remind everyone that if possible, please stand as our past and present military members walk by. It is because of them that we are able to enjoy such celebrations as parades in the first place, and they deserve our respect and gratitude.
As you fire up the barbecue Memorial Day weekend amongst family, friends, and fun, please take a moment between the hot dogs and hamburgers to remember those who gave their lives for our freedom.
I’m going to close this message with a poem by Archibald MacLeish, written in 1892. His younger brother Kenneth died during WWI when his plane was shot down over Belgium by a German fighter during a dog fight less than a month before the armistice. I think his words reach somewhere inside every American, and his message is as true today as it was over one hundred years ago:
The Young Dead Soldiers Do Not Speak
The young dead soldiers do not speak.
Nevertheless, they are heard in the still houses; who has not heard them?
They have a silence that speaks for them at night and when the clock counts.
They say “We were young. We have died. Remember us.”
They say “We have done what we could but until it is finished, it is not done”.
They say “We have given our lives but until it is finished no one can know what our lives gave”.
They say “Our deaths are not ours: they are yours. They will mean what you make them”.
They say “Whether our lives and our deaths were for peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say: it is you who must say this”.
They say “We leave you our deaths: give them their meaning. Give them an end to the war and a true peace; give them a victory that ends the war and a peace afterwards. Give them their meaning”.
“We were young” they say. “We have died. Remember us”.
Thank you for your service. Thank you for your sacrifice. Thank you….for my freedom.
-Lori
PLAY BALL!!!!
The Enfield Little League Minors and Majors teams have generously decided to host "HOOAH Games" throughout their spring season (I have posted the schedule in the Community Calendar with locations and times). At each of these games, team members will donate and collect care package items and postage funds for one of our adopted soldiers, and then sign a game ball to be included in the package. We will then send that package, sponsored by their team, to our deployed soldiers from Enfield. I'm so excited by this endeavor...what better way to show your patriotism than by playing a baseball game in honor of our brave men and women overseas?
Thank you to the players, coaches, umpires, parents, and game patrons who have taken this project on! (for more information on the Enfield Little League, go to www.EnfieldLittleLeague.org ).
Also.....
we are slowly 'adopting' more soldiers from town (as of this writing, we have five, and I know of at least one more that is pending...and I know there are more out there, so spread the word!). This means that more packages are going out and we are collecting more donated goods and could use more postage funds. If your kids are looking for a reason to hold a lemonade stand, please let me know.
I want to give a big thank you to our friends at Able Care Pharmacy on Palomba Drive. Darlene, Rose, and the rest of her staff have been nothing short of amazing, marking care package items on their shelfs for easy selection, donating items for care packages, and even setting up a donation bin so that I can pick up items weekly from their store. We could sure use more drop off sites, so if you know of some place in town that wants to offer, well, you know where to find me 
. And if you're shopping for a pharmacy that truly cares about every single person in this commmunity, well, go see the great people at Able Care (www.AbleCarePharmacy.com) .
Another great story: Remember Alivia, who had her 7th birthday party and raised care package items for our soldiers? Well, SPC Peacock wrote to me and asked that we do something for the kids to thank them for their generosity. I called Smyth's Ice Cream Stand to inquire about gift cards, and when Charlie and his staff heard the story, they donated twenty gift cards for each of the kids to have an ice cream cone, courtesy of SPC Peacock. Thank you, Charlie and the staff at Smyth's, for all you have done for our community.
So, what's new on Hooah? Well, as you know, it changes daily sometimes and then other times it's slower. I can tell you that we have new topics in our message boards and new photos in the Hooah Gallery, sent from our soldiers. There are a couple of new biographies (keep 'em coming, please!) and a few new links. Check them out and let me know what's missing!
Until next time,
Lori
Messages From Lori
3/19/2010
Greetings!
Wow, it has been a busy couple of weeks with a lot going on with Hooah. Two weeks ago I taped a segment for Rep. Karen Jarmoc for her public access TV program "Karen's Korner"; she was kind enough to ask me to come on and explain the website and get the word out. The Enfield Press has been wonderful in running our 'adopt a soldier' program invitation, and I am proud to announce that we now have FOUR service members 'adopted' for the site! More information on our wonderful men and women in uniform can be found in the 'adopt a soldier program' link on the left; suffice it to say we have one in Afghanistan, one in Iraq, one in Kuwait, and one on an aircraft carrier- can't get more diverse than that!
In the message boards you can read about Alivia Longley's birthday gift to our troops; she sacrificed her own presents for her seventh birthday to collect care package items and send them to our soldiers, and she did an amazing job. I am very proud to know her.
I am trying to get as many veterans as possible registered in our biographies section; if you know someone who might be interested in registering, please let them know about the site. Furthermore, if the veteran is unable to register themselves, either due to age, infirmity, or lack of computer skills, I have paper forms that I can mail out to the individual and would be happy to help them get their information out, just send me a message on the site and we'll work something out.
We're in talks right now about possibly marching in the Enfield parades; the thought is to join up with the Boy Scouts and collect care package items and food shelf items along the parade route with a theme of "scouts and hooah for community, home and away". If anyone has any thoughts or ideas on this, let me know!
We will also have a booth at the 4th of July celebration craft fair, handing out information, (hopefully) taking down some biography information, and selling our fundraiser bracelets. And, there are new photos in the "hooah gallery" sent back from overseas.
In closing this note, I want to thank all of you for your support of our military men and women. Today is the day that we began the conflict in Iraq seven years ago, and the 23rd of March (Tuesday) will be the seventh anniversary of the passing of one of Enfield's heroes, Phillip Jordan. We must never forget the sacrifices, small and monumental, that our brave soldiers make every single day on our behalf. Our world is a better place because of who they are and what they do.
Until next time....
-Lori
HOOAH Bracelets have arrived!
In an effort to help defray the costs of shipping for the Hooah care packages in conjunction with spreading the word about the hooah website, we now have HOOAH bracelets available for purchase. Similar to "Livestrong" bracelets, these are red, white, and blue swirled silicone bracelets embossed with the words "HOOAH! (EnfieldHooah.org) It's an Enfield thing" (see photo below).
The plan is to sell these bracelets at lemonade stands and other like situations during the spring and summer; if you are interested in purchasing one, please send me a message and I'll arrange to get one to you. They will be offered at $3.00 each or 2/$5.00.
Thanks for your support!
- Lori
HOOAH sent out the first care package today!!
I'm so excited! Yes, the first care package from the hooah website hit the road today (2/2/10), weighing a whopping twenty seven pounds (and costing $21.25!), filled with the love and support of the great people of Enfield. That huge box contained, among other items, oatmeal, soup, vienna sausages, drink mix, pop tarts, crackers, raisins, granola bars, candy, mints, gum, DVDs, envelopes, paper, pens and pencils, magazines, wipes, foot powder, socks, deodorant, toothpaste, toothbrushes...the list goes on and on! I included a couple of copies of the Enfield Press (nothing like news from home) as well as a note explaining that all the items in the care package came from the people of Enfield who just wanted to remind our soldiers that their hometown has not forgotten them.
What a wonderful thing to be a part of.
I can't tell you how amazing it is to see our community pull together and to see individuals be able to take part in a larger project by simply contributing one small item to the care packages. I am certain that SSG Magee will be thrilled with every single thing we sent; I know he has mentioned how overwhelmed he is by the kindness of people he's never personally met, as am I. I am so proud of the town that we live in...thank you, everyone, for your help and support.
More later, Lori
Hello everyone, and Happy New Year!
This is a temporary note to all of you; we are working on the Hooah care package program, and we have more exciting and interesting things coming up within this month for me to tell you about, but I'll address those events once they're up and running. For now...
One of my goals for this site is to get all of our veterans registered in the biographies section of Hooah. I know some of you are hesitant to post information because of a myriad of reasons, but hear me out.
We've all heard stories (unfortunately) of tragic events that changed lives in a mere instant. Circumstances and events that altered the course of someone's life- the split second that someone took their eyes off the road and swerved into oncoming traffic, a missed train because of a flat tire...sometimes those instances are a mere blip on the screen of life, and sometimes they have unforseen outcomes. The car that goes into oncoming traffic kills someone, the missed train derails and someone's life is spared simply because they were late. Perhaps the largest current day reminder of the fragility-and reslience-of life is the September 11th attacks. Those who perished in their 'one meeting a month' at the World Trade Center, and those who'd called out sick from work or missed their plane. Fate? Providence? Luck of the draw? I don't know. What I do know is that history was changed in an instant. Lives were changed in mere seconds; some were extinguished, and some were re-born.
In one morning, a few people changed the lives of the rest of the country.
My point is this: history is altered, constantly, by the actions we take or do not take. The decisions we make today- servicing the car, taking inventory, living our lives-effects the lives of others. So, to our service members and veterans: no matter how small you may think your contribution may have been while you were/are serving, they are a part of your history. My history. Our history. If you "only packed ammunition"...what if someone else did your job half as good? What if the guy with the gun whose ammo you were in charge of didn't fire that weapon and stop the enemy? What you did changed the course of history and shaped our world. Tell us your stories. Help us to learn and understand...and please, let us say "thank you".
If you have any problems with submitting a biography, drop me a line and let me know and I'd be happy to put it together for you. This is such an important part of our country's history; please consider publishing your biographical information.
I'll write another message when we get things up and running with the care package program; thank you to everyone who has signed on...and as always, please continue to send us information and links so we can make this site better.
-Lori
