Operation Desert Storm: 21 years later
21 years ago, my sister and I eagerly wrote letters to soldiers serving in Iraq with Operation Desert Storm. There was a program where kids could send a letter to a main address, and if you were lucky, your randomly selected soldier would read it and write back.
I didn't get a response back, much to my disappointment, but my sister did. (But she always found money, managed to land on and buy Park Place & Boardwalk every time, and was generally lucky like that) A Marine Captain named Kevin wrote back, and he sent a picture of himself next to his fighter jet. Caroline graciously said that I could write to him too, so we immediately wrote back and put our letters in one envelope. Several letters were exchanged, and after the war was over, we got some Christmas cards from him too... but as the years went by, we lost touch.
Back in May, my dad and I were talking about Memorial Day, and dad mentioned that one of his biggest regrets was not taking Caroline and I to Veteran's Day and Memorial Day parades because he felt like he should have done more to ensure we paid respect to those who serve and defend our country. I kind of chuckled and said, "But dad, don't you remember the soldier we wrote to?" That got me thinking, and since I remembered his name, I did a Facebook search for him to no avail. I put Google to work and found him on LinkedIn, and saw that he was VP of sales of a large weapons company. Since he'd been in the Armed Forces, I figured he was probably out and it would make sense if he was working in the weapons industry. I joined LinkedIn and sent him a message, telling him that I thought he was our soldier but wasn't sure. He responded saying that it was him, and caught me up on his life. I emailed him directly at his work email address that he had provided but never got a response. I figured he was busy and just didn't get around to it, or that it hadn't gone through.
Fast forward to last week.... my email informed me that I had a message from Kevin waiting in my LinkedIn inbox, so I went to check it. Kevin was traveling for work on the East coast, and would be in Atlanta the next day, and would I be interested in meeting up for breakfast or lunch? Seriously? Would I be interested? I texted him, and we set up lunch by his hotel. Ethan, Lily, and I went to meet Kevin for lunch on Wednesday, and it was so much fun. Seriously, one of the nicest guys I've ever met... and what an interesting life story he has!
After Operation Desert Storm, he was in the Reserves. He was called back and deployed in the 2003 Afghanistan campaign. (too bad Caroline and I didn't know this, because we would have started up our letter writing campaign again!) He worked directly under General Petraeus as a colonel, and returned for another tour of duty in 2007. He's out of the military now and works for the weapons company that I mentioned which has military contracts. Ethan knew exactly which company it was and was familiar with a few of their products as well. We didn't talk about the military the entire time, but about family life as well. Lily was too busy eating her lunch to pay much attention to what was going on at our table, so she was pretty quiet the entire meal.
I wish that I could post a scanned photo of Kevin that he mailed to my sister and I as kids where he's next to his fighter jet...but that's somewhere at home with my parents so I can't get access to it. However, here's a photo of us all together after lunch! Unfortunately the battery in my camera died, so we had to make do with a cell phone camera.
After our lunch was over and we had dropped Kevin off at his hotel, Ethan turned to me and asked me if my life could possibly be any more interesting than it has been. I just laughed. I've definitely had a lot of really cool experiences and met so many neat people in a several non-traditional ways in my 31 years. I'm just thankful for modern day technology that allowed me to find Kevin 21 years after he wrote my sister a letter back, and I'm grateful that he took the time to do that and to meet with us last week!
I hear Lily waking up from her nap... and I have a candidate interview through the agency in an hour, so I need to get going for now. Bunny picture tomorrow, as usual! :)
I didn't get a response back, much to my disappointment, but my sister did. (But she always found money, managed to land on and buy Park Place & Boardwalk every time, and was generally lucky like that) A Marine Captain named Kevin wrote back, and he sent a picture of himself next to his fighter jet. Caroline graciously said that I could write to him too, so we immediately wrote back and put our letters in one envelope. Several letters were exchanged, and after the war was over, we got some Christmas cards from him too... but as the years went by, we lost touch.
Back in May, my dad and I were talking about Memorial Day, and dad mentioned that one of his biggest regrets was not taking Caroline and I to Veteran's Day and Memorial Day parades because he felt like he should have done more to ensure we paid respect to those who serve and defend our country. I kind of chuckled and said, "But dad, don't you remember the soldier we wrote to?" That got me thinking, and since I remembered his name, I did a Facebook search for him to no avail. I put Google to work and found him on LinkedIn, and saw that he was VP of sales of a large weapons company. Since he'd been in the Armed Forces, I figured he was probably out and it would make sense if he was working in the weapons industry. I joined LinkedIn and sent him a message, telling him that I thought he was our soldier but wasn't sure. He responded saying that it was him, and caught me up on his life. I emailed him directly at his work email address that he had provided but never got a response. I figured he was busy and just didn't get around to it, or that it hadn't gone through.
Fast forward to last week.... my email informed me that I had a message from Kevin waiting in my LinkedIn inbox, so I went to check it. Kevin was traveling for work on the East coast, and would be in Atlanta the next day, and would I be interested in meeting up for breakfast or lunch? Seriously? Would I be interested? I texted him, and we set up lunch by his hotel. Ethan, Lily, and I went to meet Kevin for lunch on Wednesday, and it was so much fun. Seriously, one of the nicest guys I've ever met... and what an interesting life story he has!
After Operation Desert Storm, he was in the Reserves. He was called back and deployed in the 2003 Afghanistan campaign. (too bad Caroline and I didn't know this, because we would have started up our letter writing campaign again!) He worked directly under General Petraeus as a colonel, and returned for another tour of duty in 2007. He's out of the military now and works for the weapons company that I mentioned which has military contracts. Ethan knew exactly which company it was and was familiar with a few of their products as well. We didn't talk about the military the entire time, but about family life as well. Lily was too busy eating her lunch to pay much attention to what was going on at our table, so she was pretty quiet the entire meal.
I wish that I could post a scanned photo of Kevin that he mailed to my sister and I as kids where he's next to his fighter jet...but that's somewhere at home with my parents so I can't get access to it. However, here's a photo of us all together after lunch! Unfortunately the battery in my camera died, so we had to make do with a cell phone camera.
After our lunch was over and we had dropped Kevin off at his hotel, Ethan turned to me and asked me if my life could possibly be any more interesting than it has been. I just laughed. I've definitely had a lot of really cool experiences and met so many neat people in a several non-traditional ways in my 31 years. I'm just thankful for modern day technology that allowed me to find Kevin 21 years after he wrote my sister a letter back, and I'm grateful that he took the time to do that and to meet with us last week!
I hear Lily waking up from her nap... and I have a candidate interview through the agency in an hour, so I need to get going for now. Bunny picture tomorrow, as usual! :)
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