OSOT - Operation Support Our Troops

A couple of months ago, while inquiring what else we might be able to do to help our injured troops, Judith Markelz who heads up the family and soldier assistance center at Brooke told me that someone had sent a few model airplane, car, and boat kits and the troops really loved them. Think about this. Many of our troops at Brooke are either burn patients or amputees. both upper and lower extremities. Because their wounds are so severe, many of our troops spend many long months at Brooke in rehabilitation programs. There are just so many hours you can watch TV, or videos or play Game Boy or Playstation, or any other game, but at some point, the recovering soldier needs to be alone, to think, to pray, to learn to deal with their new realities, a missing hand or arm, scarring from severe burns, missing legs or feet, loss of partial sight or hearing or a myriad of other challenges. If the troop can focus on something and make goals, it helps them in their recovery.

The soldier needs to learn to deal with handling small pieces of a model, learn to grip those pieces with a prosthesis, or a very scarred hand caused by severe burns. He must learn to rehabilitate that hand and get his or her small motor skills working again.Just learning to grip is a major undertaking for both the burn victim and the amputee, but as they meet these challenges and slowly learn to function in this new reality, they also are building their self confidence, their self esteem. They now can start to build to the future because they realize that as they build a model, where they can master holding a tube of glue in their hand and making it go where they want it to go, they begin to believe in themselves, they begin to see that life may be different than it was before they were injured, but life can be productive, life can be good as they head towards recovery, both in body and in spirit.

Here's where we come in. If you would like to help our wounded begin to build to the future, all it takes is about fifteen dollars. You can get a model kit for about ten dollars. They are so light, they cost very little to mail and again, make sure to put your letter of encouragement on the box, wrap it up and send it to Walter Reed or Brooke. Here are where you should send these kits.

Building to the Future
Walter Reed Army Medical Center
Deployment Health Clinical Center
ATTN: Dan Bullis
Bldg 2 Room 3G04
Washington D.C. 20307-5001

Building to the Future
Family and Soldier Assistance Center
Army Community Services
2010 Stanley Road
Building 2797/ Suite 95
Fort Sam Houston, Texas 78234
ATTN: Judith Markelz