MCRD
San Diego Visits
Responses to our visits
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FROM RECRUITS:
"I made it....I graduated with Platoon 3090 of Kilo Company on May 31st, 2006!!! You all helped motivate me so much when I was in MRP 1 that I pushed so hard to heal up and I MADE IT!!! The letters from all the kids was great!!! I'll have you know i wrote every one of the kids back that had an address... and even kids that other recruits were not going to write back. I wanted to quit so bad for selfish reasons and when I got those letters it hit me that I'm a part of a picture way bigger than myself. Please keep doing what you are doing because if you can help one then that's all that matters! "Thank you so much for supporting us! Here in MRP time comes to a dead
halt! But having you all come here and show us that caring, really
helped a lot of recruits. More than you think! Nope, even more! I wanted to go home so bad before that day. But you all motivated me so
much. I lost my girlfriend, my mom's not well, and I was broken.
Having that stocking with the letters from the kids meant a lot to me.
Those kids are America's future and they made us cards. I now realize
that I'm not doing this for myself or my future, I'm doing it for
theirs! I have taken it upon myself to write all the kids that other
recruits didn't. I've sent about 13 so far! All of those letters
touched my heart and I just want to give back to them. Having you moms
come out helped me, so for that I will never forget you! Thank you!" First off, I would like to thank you and everyone that came to visit us last christmas. It meant more to us then you even know. My name is Justin Cihak, and I was medically discharged due to bilateral damage to the flexor tendons and plantar fascia on Feb 15 of 2005.
This is my first time returning to the site to check out the pictures, and wow does it bring back memories. Thank you so much for you support. FROM LETTER WRITERS: We just got back from our Easter Break here at West Valley Christian Academy. We were met with mountains of letters from recruits who had received our letters for Easter. The children and teachers have been so touched that the recruits took time to write. The letters are very touching. One of our teachers is planning a penpal sort of project with the young men that wrote back to her class (using only the school address!).
Thank you for telling us about this project that was meant as a blessing to the Marines and has become such a blessing to us. Isn't that just like God?! Thank you so much for giving us the opportunity for our children to send pictures and letters to our Marine recruits who are recovering from injuries. What an honor and privilege. My Junior and Primary Churches, ages 3 thru 12, colored Easter pictures and wrote little notes and signed their first names and age. I put the address of our church on the back, just in case. We only have 16 kids but they really had a good time with this project. This week one of the young men who received a picture wrote a note to the little boy who colored it and sent it to the church. It was for Kyle. Of all the children in our group, Kyle needed this boost the most. He isn’t used to getting much positive recognition. He is new to my class and having a problem with me because I look for ways to praise him :o). He’s not sure how to handle that. Anyway, his face just shined as I read, with his permission, his letter out loud. This young man encouraged him to stay in school and one day he too could become a Marine. This young man will be getting a letter from me letting him know what an encouragement his letter was. Thanks again for giving us this opportunity. FROM RECRUIT'S FAMILY MEMBERS: I'm so thankful and blessed that due to the volunteers and everyone who helped out, my son is going to have a good Easter." Going through all the pictures I came across my son and immediately started crying. He looks so handsome. This was our first Easter without our son but the pictures and phone call made it easier." Thank you all so very much for your visit!! I just got a call from my son from a volunteer's cell phone - he is feeling sick from all the Peeps, but doing great in spirit." You have me crying! These pictures are precious! Just seeing the smiles on their faces and the tears in their eyes as they hug everyone is touching! Everyone who helped are extremely beautiful people. Thank you all for caring so much about these boys." I cannot begin to express my gratitude for all of your efforts and time that you put in to support and show these dedicated men your love for them. I am the grandmother of one of the Marines you all visited on Christmas Day. He has been sidelined with pneumonia for the past 9 weeks and very discouraged and anxious to get back to training. We sorely missed him and worried since we were not able to send him anything for Christmas. (His 19th birthday was in December so it was a double blow for
all of us and him). THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart for your kindness
and please relay the thanks to the rest of the group. I continue to bake cookies and send other goodies to the Marines still in Iraq and pray for
their safe return! Thank you so much for passing the hugs and message on to Tristan. He was so happy when he called me and said he got the hugs and
everything. Amazing that he even let you take extra pictures as he
HATES to have his picture taken, guess that was like a hug back to me. Oh, and thanks to who ever loaned him the phone, too! The visit meant so very much to him. He has been in MRP for around three months and visitors and phone calls were just what they both needed. Wow, you guys all made such a wonderful difference in so many lives yesterday. All I can say is, thank you, thank you. I want to say thank you for seeing my son on Christmas at boot camp.He is in MRP1 right now and is down. I got letter from him today that he wrote on that day - he told me of the visits and of the photo -it was nice to see him once more. Thank you from a Dad Thank you so much for the photos! My son sent us a letter right after you all visited them recently and made us aware of the photos. What a blessing it was to this mom who misses her son! First I wanted to thank you for visiting my son at MRP3 - MCRD San Diego. It has been so hard having him there, hoping all is well but not really knowing. The pictures are wonderful. I cried seeing Bobby in them. We received our best Christmas gift of the year at
about
5pm central time when the picture you took of our son, Ben appeared
on your
web site. You have no idea, or maybe you do, what it means to see a
picture
of your son who you have not seen since Nov. 27th. It was so good to
see
his face and read about the wonderful service you perform. We thank
you and
God bless you all!! Sincerely My son is in
recruit training at MCRD San Diego. He is currently in MRP 2
recovering from pneumonia and he called today to wish us all Merry
Christmas and told us about the Marine Mom visit!! I wanted to say
thank you very much to your organization for giving him some of the
attention & love that I could not be there to give him today. We all
miss & love him very much, he's a very very special young man and it
was breaking my heart that he had no one there for him at Christmas.
I feel much better after having talked to him & heard about how
wonderful the Marine Mom's were to him. I don't know any other way to
thank you all but your email address was on the website so I thought
I'd try this way. Thank you to all of you who made our Christmas so much nicer. Our
son's girlfriend called to let us know that you had a site to go and
see our recruit. His name is Travis, he's pictured with 4
other guys. He's the tall one in the middle. We were just so
happy to see him. Your thoughtfulness of getting up on Christmas day
to brighten the lives of loved ones is greatly appreciated. I wish I
was closer to help you do things like this. The loneliness that one
feels cant really be described. I just wanted to thank you again. Your thoughtfulness will
be remember always. © 2005uneekNet • mike@uneekNet.com |