Just for a moment, close your eyes and transport your mind to a place far, far away, actually not a place but a hell hole. You are now a U.S. Marine, Solider, Sailor or Airman in Iraq or Afghanistan on the ground fighting for the freedoms that we all enjoy back home. Depending on where you're stationed, you may be using a bucket for a toilet and eating MREs that don't taste much better than what's in that bucket. It's sweltering hot during the day and perhaps freezing at night. The area you're in smells like raw sewage and dust covers every part of your exposed body and then some and let's not forget, people are trying to kill you. Now add to this the stress of knowing Christmas is coming soon and you may not have enough money to buy your children, whom you dearly miss back home, gifts to help make this special day a merry one.
As anyone who has served in the military knows, pay for lower ranking enlisted men and woman, typically E-1 thru E-3, is very low. So low in fact that according to the U.S. Census Bureau statistics for 2007, the poverty threshold for a family of three, with one adult working, one non working spouse and one child (i.e. a solider deployed in Iraq with his spouse at home raising a child) is an annual income of $16,689.00. An enlisted man or woman in the U.S. military at the rank of E-2 with two years of service earns $18,118.80 a year, which is only $120.00 more a month than what the federal government considers the line of poverty in America! While housing and other special allowances can add to a married and/or deployed enlisted persons pay, the bottom line is, with the high cost of gas, food and other expenses, it can be difficult at best to give their children the Merry Christmas they deserve while serving our nation.
Local Protectors Supporting our Nations Protectors
For those of you reading this on its original published date, Thursday, December 11, 2008, there are still two weeks left until Christmas, enough time to take action if you chose to or begin planning for next year. Earlier this year the non-profit police volunteer organization, National Association Citizens On Patrol, formalized what I believe is the first program of its kind named "COPS for the Troops' Kids". The first word COPs has a dual meaning, one being the acronym for "Citizens on Patrol" and the second being the nickname for police officers. For those who may have missed this during the police academy, the word COP came from the shortened version of the word "Copper" which some of the nations first police officers were called, referring to their badge being made out of copper. For you old movie buffs, you may remember hearing gangsters from the old days saying "I'm going to kill that Copper," which today would translate to "I'm going to cap me a Five-O." We chose this dual meaning for a purpose in hopes that police volunteer groups around the nation will take the lead on this program to support their local deployed troops and for areas where no volunteer units exist or they don't wish to participate, local police and sheriffs' agencies can take the lead.
How can you help?
Unlike the well known "Toys for Tots" program which has grown into a multimillion dollar non-profit corporation with the top four executives earning combined salaries in excess of $700,000 a year, the COPS for the Troops' Kids program was designed to be simple, effective and grassroots in nature.
COPS for the Troops' Kids is locally based with minimal support and guidance from the NACOP at the national level and managed by each group or agency to support the military unit they wish to (versus being told to). In its simplest form, a local police volunteer unit or law enforcement agency or both working together would identify a local military base, National Guard unit, Navy ship, etc. which has deployed enlisted personnel who will be gone for the Christmas holiday. The volunteers and/or LEOs would make contact with the proper base personnel to determine how many dependent children will be home, minus a deployed parent, and if there is a way for the base to accept new toy donations to be distributed during the holidays to them, such as a base holiday party for dependents.
With that information in hand, the local law enforcement volunteer unit and/or agency can best determine if they have the ability to collect enough toy gifts within their own personnel ranks to make a difference at the base. If not, is there enough additional support from the community, local businesses, etc. to meet the needs. If so, the collection process starts which is where the national project office kicks in by providing free program logo templates to print and attach to collection boxes along with a free one page web site for their local program to advertise and promote their local campaign. The bottom line is, the program motto says it all, "Heart to Heart, Hand to Hand". In other words, if done properly, no money should every change hands, just toys, from the hearts and hands of members of law enforcement to the hearts and hands of the children of our deployed military men and woman.
While most would agree that a good healthy pay raise is long overdue for the members of our U.S. Military, until such time that this happens, if ever, we can at least help support our troops in a meaningful way once at year at Christmas by supporting their children. If you ever doubt the need for this program, just close your eyes and remember that far away hell hole our brave men and women sadly call home during Christmas and thank the Lord you're here in the U.S.A. and not there. God bless our troops and all men and women in uniform who serve our nation so proudly, both on our streets at home and in far away places throughout the world and a Merry Christmas to all!
Any law enforcement agency, volunteer, auxiliary or reserve officer unit interested in starting a local COPS for the Troops' Kids program is invited to visit the web site listed below to learn how to along with contacts for the program office. You're also invited to read an overview of the first program success story implemented at the 29 Palms, California, USMC base working with the local Armed Services YMCA office to accept a donation of over 400 new toys collected from area citizen patrol and police volunteer units.
