The ties that bind us.........

Team,

I hope that this note finds you well. We’ve been busy this week, with more activity on the horizon for next week as well. We’ve heard from our friends up front about our last shipment, so we’ve got a lot of great things to report.

On Monday, we got the second half of our December shipment out. I think that we broke some kind of speed record in that the truck rolled up and dropped off the pallets with the 104 boxes of socks at 2:30 and between Carla slapping labels on them and me dragging them down to the post office we were able to push out 7,400 pair by 4:30. This took us to 10,000 pair for the month, bringing us to 735,000 pair since May of 2011.

Thanks to all of you who made this possible.

What’s a little more incredible is that the socks from our shipment last Friday have already hit the units that we mailed them too!

We heard from a number of units forward:

“On behalf of 3rd Platoon, India Company, we would like to extend our most sincere gratitude and thanks for the supply of socks sent to our platoon. It was a huge morale boost to the guys just before the Holidays.”

“Good morning sir, on behalf of the enlisted leaders of the battalion I wanted to thank you for not only the service your family has provided to our battalion, but that to our country.”

Thanks to all of you who help us make sure that we can continue helping the men and women forward.

I would also like to thank all of you who reached out to me and Carla following last week’s update. We are always grateful for your kindness and empathy, especially during this time of year. Once a Marine asked us about our “organization”, and I had to correct him. We are not an organization; we are a community that is focused on the care of the men and women who serve our country.

Or to be more basic, we are a family.

Last week, I had an experience that drove this concept home.

I received a note from a woman who is also a Gold Star Mother. Her only son was a Marine who was killed while serving with 3/5 during the battle of Fallujah in 2004. Following her note, I did a little research and was deeply moved by what I found as both of our sons were remarkably similar.

Both were shy young men who were well loved by their families and the people that they came in contact with. Both had to work hard to achieve what they set their minds to. Both joined the Marines right out of high school. The Marines transformed both from boys to men.

Both died on their first deployments. Both families were devastated by the news.

Both her son and Donald served in the 5th Marine Regiment, which is based at Camp San Mateo. At Camp San Mateo, there is a Memorial Garden that commemorates the fallen of the wars that the Regiment fought in.

For the Global War on Terror, there are two monuments, one for Iraq, one for Afghanistan. They are modeled after the concrete traffic barriers that were utilized during the war to protect installations from car bombs. On the memorial are the battalion insignia and then listed below the names of the fallen and the date of their deaths. The number of names for 3/5 on both memorials are significant.

For the lay person, looking at the names and dates, it might not mean a lot. For those who served with the unit, or people familiar with it, it is a map of the war and the battles fought. Fallujah for 3/5, Ramadi for 2/4, on the Afghanistan monument, Sangin for both 3/5 and 1/5.

As I look at the monuments, I am touched by the fact that neither of our sons knew each other. They came from different parts of the country. Their deaths were 5 years apart. Yet now, they face each other, with their brothers who fell with them, across that garden for eternity. They are a reminder of the cost of war and an inspiration to not only those that served with them, but for all those who follow. I think again of the fallen Marines mother. She is not a stranger. She is part of our family.

Reading the news today, there is no end of division. It seems sometimes that our Nation has divided itself into different camps, demonizing the other. How grateful I am for that mothers note that helped to remind me that regardless of our situations, regardless of our economic standing, regardless of our politics we are all connected.

One Nation.

One community.

One family.

Connected by the sacrifice of many. Bonded by our history of freedom. Driven to be better.

We aren’t quite done for the year. We’ll be pushing out some more boxes on Monday to the units that we weren’t able to get to last week. If you’d like to help, please take a moment to go to http://socks4heroes.com and make a donation. We can also use your help in getting the word out about our mission. If you can’t help us with a donation, please take a moment to forward this e-mail to everyone you know who supports those who wear our Nation’s cloth.

Thanks for joining us in our position in this fight!

Jim Hogan

In memory of our son, LCPL Donald Hogan

Posthumously awarded the Navy Cross

KIA 8/26/2009 Nawa, Afghanistan

We honor his memory by caring for Americans serving in harm’s way.

Fair Winds and Following Seas......

Team,

I hope that this note finds you all well and happy after your Thanksgiving holidays. We had quite a week, and as a result were reminded that we have a lot to be grateful for. We got an opportunity to hear from the men and women forward, an opportunity to spend time with our Marine family and were able to get some socks out to some units on the pointed end of the spear. As a result, we’ve got a lot of great things to report.

As I mentioned last week, Wednesday would have been our son’s 32nd birthday. So you can figure it’s not the easiest time for us, but one of the things we’ve found is that the universe doesn’t allow us to spend too much time thinking about it if we remain open and willing to follow the path that it puts us on.

This year was no different.

On Monday, I got a note from a Marine Sergeant Major who was responding to a request to see if we could help them. He reminded me of our past acquaintance back in 2012 and 2014 when we shipped socks to him when he was a First Sergeant with another unit. I was happy that he remembered us. Back then we were shipping black cotton crew socks, I was happy to tell him that the quality of the socks had improved.

On Tuesday, we were honored to be invited to a “Relief and Appointment” ceremony for the outgoing and incoming Sergeant Majors for our son’s battalion 1/5. It was a small affair, but we had the opportunity to see many of the people we have met at the Camp who have meant so much to us over the years.

We had an opportunity to work with the Sergeant Major on a couple of projects in between all the training and deployment preparation that he was responsible for in getting his battalion ready to go out on their mission. Most notably was the 1/5 Afghanistan 10-year reunion. He always went out of his way to meet our requests, no matter how seemingly unreasonable. We always felt like we were a thorn in his side. During the ceremony he put that impression to rest.

The ceremony itself is pretty simple, orders for both Sergeant Majors are read, there is the passing of the sword and then thank-you’ s. Normally they go to their Commands, the Non-Commissioned Officers they worked with, Marines from the past who had mentored them and their families.

When the Sergeant Major began his thank you’ s, it went to Command, and then he thanked us. He talked about the reunion and our never-ending requests that we thought were irritating him. There were a few of them. How many Marines on the parade deck for the ceremony? Could we get the 1st Marine Division band? What kind of support could we get for the climb up 1st Sergeants hill? But what he shared with the audience was that he was amazed at the level of detail that we went thought to make sure that the returning Marines were made to feel comfortable and had a great reunion. He told the crowd that having the 300 Veterans and Family Members back for those 3 days was one of the high points of this time with 1/5. I was grateful that I was wearing sunglasses because otherwise the tears coming out of my eyes would have been obvious.

We wish our friend fair winds and following seas to his next assignment on the drill field at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot where he will spend the next two years making Marines.

On Wednesday we went to see our son.

As Carla arranges the flowers by his headstone, I think of some of the past birthdays we’d spent together. Being born on the 25th, on occasion it would fall on Thanksgiving. Once when he was little, we went out to a restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner, and he said to Carla “Are all these people here for my birthday?” A waiter overheard him and the next thing he knew there was a little piece of cake and a candle and the entire restaurant began singing “Happy Birthday to You”.

I can still remember his smile.

On Friday we ship. We push out 3,600 pairs of socks to special operations units in Syria, Iraq, and Africa. Carla and I go down to our storage unit and begin the process of labeling boxes. I load them into the truck and take them to the Post Office. The day after Thanksgiving, there is no one on the dock. I load the boxes into the carriers and go home. As I am ready to leave, a Postal Driver backs her truck up next to mine, gets out and looks at all the boxes and asks, “Who are you shipping these too.” While she cannot see it under my mask, I smile.

“My family.”

We’ll be shipping again on Monday. If you’d like to help with postage, please take a moment to go to http://socks4heroes.com and make a donation. We could also use your help in getting the word out. Please forward this note to anyone you know who supports the military.

Thanks for joining us in our position in this fight!

Jim Hogan

In memory of our son, LCPL Donald Hogan.

Posthumously awarded the Navy Cross

KIA 8/26/2009 Nawa, Afghanistan

We honor his memory by caring for Americans wherever they serve in harm’s way.

Why we do what we do........

Team,

I hope that this note finds you well. I apologize for not getting this update out earlier, however as much I hate to admit it, after our shoot yesterday I’m moving a little slowly today. But we’ve had a great week, with a lot of good things to report.

This week we celebrated the Marine Corps Birthday and Veterans day. A time when America remembers those who served and still stand among us. For us, this was driven home again through our experiences with those we hold dear.

It was a busy week for us. Not only did we have to get ready for our fundraiser, but we also had “1/5 Family” business to attend to. The retirement of our dear friend GYSGT. Thomas Praxedes.

For those of you who may not have heard the story, Thomas was our son’s recruiter. Following our son’s death, Thomas felt guilty. At our son’s viewing, he expressed his sorrow. We were civil, but not warm. With everything else going on, it was the best we could do.

A few months later at Donald’s Battalion Memorial, following the ceremony, I watched as Thomas tried to go and speak to my wife, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. As he started to leave, I spoke to him and he told me how guilty he felt about our son’s death. I asked him if my son had fulfilled all his duties as a Marine and a man. He responded that he did. I told him he had nothing to feel guilty about.

We have been close since.

A little while later, Donald’s unit prepared to go back to Afghanistan. One day Thomas called to tell me that he had volunteered to go back as the Platoon Staff Sergeant for our son’s Platoon, 2 Alpha. Some people are defined by their words, others by their actions. With that action, Thomas made himself a part of our family.

On Friday, he ended 17 years of honorable service in the United States Marine Corps. Some people try to gauge people by their history and their accomplishments, you can tell who Thomas was by the men who came to see him begin the next chapter of his life.

There were Marines from 3/1 who he fought with in Fallujah and Haditha and there were the Marines from 1/5. I could spend a couple of pages listing all of them and our relationships, but I won’t. But there were Marines and Marine vets who traveled the length and breadth of our Nation to wish our friend farewell and following seas.

We wish Thomas, his wife Roxanne and their family much love and hope for their future happiness in the next chapter of their lives. Thomas has certainly earned it.

The next morning, we’re up at 2:30 AM and we’re off to our event.

I’m always a little nervous on shoot days. For some reason, with all the things going on in our Nation, I’m a little more so. Even though we’ve gone through the lists repeatedly, we’ve organized, we’ve counted, we’ve loaded the truck, the minute I get behind the wheel, I ask myself “what am I forgetting.”

We arrive at the Range at 6AM, our volunteers are there to help us. It moves quickly. The pop-ups get built, the targets placed, the registration and scoring stations staged up, the firearms uncased. We go through the safety procedures again (even though most of our volunteers have been with us for close to 10 shoots), final positions are assigned and at 8AM, the first shots go downrange.

For this event, instead of “first come, first serve” we scheduled all the shooting times in advance. We limited the number of attendees and the event sold out. Every 20 minutes a new group checked in, received their targets and were taken to the firing line, it moves like clockwork.

The issues experienced are minor. A battery in a red-dot needs to be replaced. A hand grip needs tightening, a spring cap needs to be torqued down. There are no firearm failures, there are no issues on the line. The groups cycle through the line and off to wherever they’re going. For an event involving 10 firearms and 7,500 rounds of ammunition it was pretty uneventful.

Of course, there were a couple of exceptions.

One of our guests was the Commander of the 1st Marine Division. We’ve been friends with their family since he commanded the 5th Marine Regiment. His wife signed him up kidding him that just because he no longer needed to do rifle and pistol re-qualifications didn’t mean he could let his skills atrophy. She didn’t need to worry.

Our friend shot with a group of Orange County and LA Sherriff’s who came to play. Out of a possible score of 940, they were consistently scoring between 770 and 800. What that means is that between 77 and 80 of their 94 shots landed in the 10 ring or bullseye of the target.

As they got ready to shoot I spoke to their ring-leader and kidded him about bringing a group of “ringers”. He held up his hand to stop me, pointed at our friend and said; “Don’t talk to me about ringers, we shot with THAT guy”.

Later I walked up to the scoring table, our friend puts up an 860 out of a possible 940. The next person to him is 50 points away.

But my favorite was a friend of ours asked if he could bring his Dad, a retired Marine Non-com to shoot. He told me “he’s a little older but he should be OK.” They show up and his Dad goes through the course. He shoots 45’s and 9MM’s. He throws rounds downrange with all the rifles including our cannon, the 716 which shoots a 30 caliber round.

At the end of it, he shows me his target and I joke with him, “pretty good for a youngster’, he tells me he’s 94 years old.

You can’t make this stuff up.

As always, the shoot ends, we pack up. We load the truck while the scorers keep crunching numbers. In fact, they’re doing it for about an hour after we leave.

We get home and unload the truck and take it back to UHAUL. I take my boots off and collapse onto the couch. Carla and I joke that we may be getting too old for this.

A little later, we receive a note from a young Soldier in Afghanistan. It reads:

“To Whom this may Concern,

This is probably not the primary spot that you were looking for a response but the link did not work to respond so I’m using email as my way to say thanks.

Thank you for going out of your way to support the troops. All the little contributions or messages do truly mean something to soldiers. It’s easy to assume that this is something that organizations or companies do to gain reputation but I don’t see it that way. I see people who took time to think about the soldiers away from home serving our great nation. People who support individuals willing to sacrifice anything under our flag. I am always thankful to live in a country that respects what we do because it’s easy to take the every day person’s support for granted. Thank you.

This is my first tour. Arriving into country is nerve racking. All you can think about is making sure you’re doing everything you can to contribute. A couple days into country I received these pairs of socks from you guys. It’s crazy to think about how happy a few pairs of socks made me. It gave me a reminder that there is people supporting us and care for us. I am thankful for the nice little care package and so are my buddies.”

I share it with my wife and we both smile. Maybe we’ll keep doing it a while longer.

Thanks for joining us in our position in this fight!

Jim Hogan

In memory of our son, LCPL Donald Hogan

Posthumously awarded the Navy Cross

KIA 8/26/2009 Nawa, Afghanistan

We honor his memory by caring for Americans wherever they serve in harm’s way