New notes from the front........

Team,

I hope that this note finds you well. We’ve continued to push this week in making sure that any American wants socks can get them, as well as having heard from a number of units that just received their shipments. It’s been a great week and we’ve got a whole bunch of great things to report!

Some of you have noticed that we changed up our website a while ago. We did it to try to make it simpler for people to be able to find us. Not only donors, but the men and women we server. One of the things that we added was a page marked Unit Support and made sure that it was prominently featured on our home page. Since we’ve put it up, it’s gotten a lot of use!

The form isn’t difficult. It’s really just the unit mailing address, when their deployment date ends and a contact e-mail address.

As our boxes started hitting across the Areas of Operation in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, the recipients share the contents with units and service members who haven’t received any. As a result, we’ve had 5 additional units ask for help and we’ve been happy to oblige.

Here is the note we received following letting one of the units know that they can expect some socks soon:

“Thanks! This is my 3rd deployment and the first I've heard of you guys. A friend gave me a pair of your socks, and I love them. Thanks for your support to the troops over here!”

We also got a bunch of thank you notes and some pictures:

“I just wanted to let you know we received 4 boxes that you sent to our unit. The socks are amazing, and the Soldiers are very happy. Thank you for you and your teams' effort in getting them to us. Everyone has gotten at least one package of 6 pairs.”

“Finally, was able to get our 2 boxes. Had to shut my post office due to COVID. Was good to see smiles on our young soldiers and Airman faces today as I helped hand the socks out. Many thanks, and much appreciate the support. “

“I wanted to reach out to you and personally thank you for your support to the Military. Our unit greatly appreciate your gift to the men and women supporting this mission and every other unit you have sent packages too. I would like you to know the following, once I passed these to the different sections here, I’ve had multiple people come back and ask for another pair or two. It truly makes a difference. Again, we thank you for what you stand for and what you have done for so many.”

“Today, the Marines at the MARCENT Coordination Element - Kuwait, as well as any other Marines that wandered into our work spaces, received socks today! Your most recent package was received today and distributed immediately upon opening. All the Marines here appreciate the socks, so please relay that to all of the donors, as well as your staff and family. Keep being awesome!”

“Sir, just wanted to pass along that our unit just received 2x boxes of socks. Much appreciated. We will distribute these out to the Soldiers and make sure we have some pictures to send back. Thank you again for doing this!!!”

“Thank you for everything you and your organization is doing. Your socks are very popular with the troops.”

But of course, we saved the best for last:

“I received some of your socks today and I hope you don't mind as I'm not an American! I am a Royal Marines Commando but I'm serving with an American unit for a six-month tour. It’s an incredible organisation you have set up because you're not wrong, a new pair of socks when living in poor conditions will bring a smile to anyone’s face. Thank you for all of your hard work and thank you for the socks, they're greatly appreciated. Again, I hope you don't mind me having some pairs. “

We didn’t mind. In fact, we are big fans of the Royal Marines, as one of his comrades paid Carla the ultimate compliment.

While many of you have met Carla, she doesn’t give off a very threatening vibe. She’s not particularly big and she usually wanders around with a smile on her face, belying the fact that she is an avid shooter, and was trained by a Marine Battalion Gunner on how to shoot. She is often seen putting a series of rounds into the chest of a target followed by a couple in its face. This is known as “winning hearts and minds”.

Often, we will go to a range and all the gangbanger and special operator wannabe’s look at her with the “what’s she doing here” look until she lets loose, and they realize not to cross her. While she may appear harmless, she’s lethal!

We live near the Marine Base at Camp Pendleton and one day were asked if we would like to bring our armory down to let the contingent from the Royal Marines who were out for the Warrior Games send some lead down range. Not unusually, the same thing happened, everyone looked at my wife with that familiar look of smugness until she started hammering the target.

After ripping the center out of a target with a 1911, the Royal Marine Corporal standing behind her said solemnly, “Madame, you are a bad-ass”! Of course, with his accent it sounded closer to “bod-oss”. I think she quit smiling about it a week later!

I was happy to share the story with him as well as the socks.

We are grateful that what we are doing is continuing to have a big impact, and that our socks continue to be a big hit with the men and women receiving them. But most of all, we are grateful for all your help in making sure that we can continue to make sure that we are able to continue making sure that they can continue to receive them.

Thanks for your help.

We have got a couple of weeks to go before our next shipment. We’re down to below 1,500 pair, so if someone needs socks, we’ll make sure that they’ll get some. We can still use your help. Please take a moment to go to http://socks4heroes.com and donate if you haven’t recently or take a moment to forward our message to your friends who support the Military.

Thanks for joining us in our position in this fight!

Jim

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

A running start on a New Year......

Team,

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Holiday Season and a Happy New Year! We’ve gotten a running start on the 2021 in that we’ve pushed out socks to a record number of units over a seven-day period and have heard from a number of the units that we support. So, all in all, for our first update of the New Year, we’ve got some great things to report!

While everyone continues to talk about the drawdown, there are still a whole bunch of Americans still facing down range. One of the things that we continue to do is to make sure that if there is a unit in harm’s way, we know who they are. For us the challenge is not identifying Marine units but finding Army units. Fortunately, we’ve made a number of friends over the years who are always happy to help us.

After we took our break, I reached out to one of them who is an Army Commander who we had the privilege of helping when he was deployed in Afghanistan. Within 24 hours, we were provided with names, mailing addresses and e-mail addresses for each unit forward.

But information isn’t useful if there isn’t action accompanying it.

Starting last Thursday, we began pushing socks out. Our first shipment was 5,200 pair. Our second was 3,800 pair. This ended our year at 751,000 pair since May of 2011.

But we weren’t done.

This week, we shipped 7,000 pair to make sure that everyone who wanted socks would have them. Socks For Heroes will be at every Military Base in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and East Africa where American troops stand in harm’s way.

We’ve also heard from a number of units forward:

“I am pleased to inform you that we received a shipment from Socks for Heroes today. I want to personally thank you and your family for the support and the sacrifices you have made over the years. Our unit greatly appreciate the shipment and your global contribution to forces deployed aboard. Even the simplest gift is a gesture that means a lot to the men and women deployed here, especially during the holiday season. We will put these socks to good use as we continue to take the fight to the enemy!”

“The socks arrived on Christmas Eve, so we got a great Christmas present. Thank you so much for the support and sending the socks for everyone here. Please pass on our thanks to everyone who donates to and supports the Socks for Heroes program.”

“Apologies for the late response. We have been busy getting people and equipment out of the country, especially prior to the holidays. So, here I am playing catch up on emails. We did receive the box of socks and they were distributed amongst the Marines within our detachment, as well as other Marines that are on our base. We all appreciate the socks, as many of the Marines' socks had holes in them, and many stated they were still wearing socks from boot camp or OCS. I am attempting to get some pictures of us with the socks, but we all live at various places around base, we work in a secured space, so cameras and phones are not allowed. Getting us together outside of work, while I have my phone, with the socks is proving more difficult than I anticipated. I will continue to work that angle, as it is the least, I can do for the awesome socks you sent to us. I hope you had a Merry Christmas and are looking forward to the New Year.”

“Once again thank you for the socks. We received them today and everyone raves about the quality. We, as service members, cannot thank you enough for your continued support for our deployed personnel. Have a great day.”

All told, we pushed 16,000 pair out, making our total 758,000 pair.

The socks are bringing smiles to the faces of Americans far from home.

It’s a great start for the New Year.

Thanks to all of you who enable us to continue our mission.

We can always use your help. We anticipate that the drawdowns aren’t going to continue, but instead, will begin to go in the other direction again. If this is the case, we’re going to have to step our game.

If you haven’t made a donation in a while, we hope that you will take a moment to go to http://socks4heroes.com today. If you can forward our message to anyone and everyone you know who supports our military to help us spread the word, we’d appreciate it.

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

The gift of gratitude for the holidays......

Team,

I hope that this note finds you well. We’ve had a great week where we’ve been able to get socks out to our friends forward, heard from some of the units that we support, and have had an opportunity to look at what we’ve accomplished together during a difficult year. So, once again, we’ve got a lot of great things to report.

On Monday, we sent another 3,000 pairs of socks to Marine units in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Middle East. We are optimistic that we’ve gotten socks out to anyone who wanted them.

We also heard from some of our friends forward. They write:

“I am pleased to inform you that we received a shipment from Socks for Heroes today. I want to personally thank you and your family for the support and the sacrifices you have made over the years. Our unit greatly appreciates the shipment and your global contribution to forces deployed aboard. Even the simplest gift is a gesture that means a lot to the men and women deployed here, especially during the holiday season. We will put these socks to good use as we continue to take the fight to the enemy!”

“Received your packages today. Thank you so much. These were a big hit with the squadron.”

“We cannot thank you enough for the socks. All my guys were very happy to get them. Truly appreciate your support for our troops at home and abroad. Happy Holidays!”

It made our day.

Thanks to all of you who helped to make this happen.

It looks like this will be our last shipment of the year. At best a difficult year, but together we’ve managed to pull more than our share of rabbits out of a pretty small hat.

At the end of 2019, we had shipped 679,000 pairs of socks. As of today, we are over 741,000 pair.

We’ve kept true to our mission of providing for the men and women in the fight. Not at the level that we had hoped for when we started, but we’ve managed to claw our way back into a position where we can again have a positive impact on the lives of those who have sacrificed for our protection.

This will probably be the last post of the year. Carla and I will be taking a couple of weeks off to charge our batteries, but before I go, I have one last story to tell you.

During Operation Desert Shield, a Congressman went on a trip to visit the troops over the holidays. He went to all the bases and asked what the service men and women wanted. Some wanted more phone and video time, some wanted better food for their holiday meal, there were requests all over the board.

At the end he found himself at a remote desert outpost that was staffed by Marines. Their conditions were at best rustic. There were no tents. There was no hot chow. There was a line of fighting holes with Marines scanning the horizon, weapons hot and ready.

The Congressman went to one of the holes bent down and asked the Marine what he could do for him to make his holidays a little brighter. The Lance Corporal looked up at him and without missing a beat responded, “You could bring us some more ammo!”

And people wonder why we do what we do.

As we head into the holiday season, difficult as they may be during the challenges posed by the pandemic, we can all remember what it is that we have to be grateful for.

We’re grateful for the men and women forward who will be standing post in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. They do so wearing our socks.

We’re grateful for those who sail in harm’s way in the South China sea. You have made sure that they have been cared for.

We’re grateful for those who hunt terrorists on the ground and from the air. You have provided for them as well.

We are most grateful for you our friends who have stepped forward to help them when so many would not.

We’ll be shipping again in January. If you’d like to help, please take a moment to go to http://socks4heroes.com and make a donation or help us get our message out by sending this note out to anyone you know who supports our troops.

Carla and I would like to wish all of you the happiest of holiday seasons.

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.