Operation Comfort Warriors

As the war in Afghanistan winds down, U.S. military personnel are coming home where they join other recent veterans who served in Iraq. Many of these servicemembers have left the battlefield only to be faced with a new fight; a struggle to overcome the mental and physical wounds suffered during deployment. The American Legion is committed to supporting our veterans, servicemembers and their families. Operation Comfort Warriors is a program dedicated to meeting the needs of wounded, injured or ill military personnel by providing them with comfort items not usually supplied by the government, explains American Legion District 13 Commander Carlton Patterson. “This is when our young men and women have come back home and they are in the hospital rehabbing with prosthetic legs or arms and this is something that the VA doesn’t furnish them with anything.  This is something that the American Legion started a couple of years back.” Commander Patterson tells more about how Operation Comfort Warriors works.  “We go to our veterans and we ask them what they would like to have.  They tell us something like an IPad or something to occupy their time with to get their mind off their problems.  We go out and purchase these items for them and when they leave they take these items with them.” The American Legion is asking the community to donate to this worthy endeavor, concludes Commander Patterson. “A monetary donation is what we are asking for because we don’t have anywhere to store anything and we can’t send anything because the hospitals don’t have anywhere to store a bunch of stuff for veterans.  Last year, we raised over a million dollars to help and they are very appreciative of this thing.” The American Legion encourages monetary donations so that it can expedite the purchase and delivery of items to troops.  You can make a monetary donation by sending it to American Legion Post #120, P.O. Box 204, Seneca, SC, 29679 or by visiting www.legion.org/operationcomfortwarriors.