Foundation provides comfort items to deployed troops

Service members serving downrange in Afghanistan shouldn’t be cold, hungry or need comfort items.

It often comes as a surprise to family members and friends back home that soldiers find everyday items such as granola, beef jerky, cookies, gum, candy and feminine products hard to come by when serving overseas. 

Enter the Douglas J, Green Memorial Foundation, a non-profit organization that helps supply troops with care packages.

The foundation is named in honor of Green, a Sterling resident who died Aug. 28, 2011 in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan of injuries he suffered when insurgents attacked his unit using an improvised explosive device and small arms fire.

“He was hilarious and could make anyone’s worst day into their best, just with a joke,” said Alicia Swanstrom, Green’s girlfriend. “He was always positive and never wanted anyone to worry about him.”

At the time of his death, Green was on his second deployment to Afghanistan and was within a couple of weeks of returning home.

“Every day he took on an emotional burden as he saw friends severely injured and killed, and feared when his time would come,” she continued. “As if the emotional burden was not enough, Doug was hungry and also had to deal with the physical burden of patrolling on foot for hours and hours every day, with extremely heavy equipment while only guaranteed one mead a day, short rations occurred frequently.”

To keep Green’s spirits up, Swanstrom and his family frequently sent him care packages with snacks.

“After Doug died, Doug’s mother, sister, best friend, my close friend, and I all wanted to make a difference for the men and women serving during this war. After seeing how much Doug sacrificed for all of us, we needed to support others in the same situation,” she said.

At the time of his death, Green was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division based in Fort Wainwright, Al. Swanstrom added that Green didn’t join the Army because he had to.

“His family offered him double whatever the Army was offering him to stay home and work for his grandfather,” she said, “but Doug wanted to join the Army because he was impacted by 9/11 and felt a strong urge to serve and protect the U.S.”

She said many service members serving overseas don’t have the same type of support system Green had, and it is those soldiers that the Douglas J. Green Memorial Foundation seeks to help.

“Our goal is to build a relationship with the soldiers we sponsor, along with their closest friends and families. Through this relationship we can be better informed as to exactly what their needs are during deployment,” Swanstrom explained.

The foundation was formed on Nov. 3, 2011 and used last year’s holiday season to put together a fundraiser that sent out 100 care packages to deployed soldiers for Christmas. Eighteen Keller Williams agents in Manassas, including Jeannie Jarrett, headed up a Stuff a Stocking for a Hero event, that helped supply 25 of those stockings.

“We will continue to provide food to our soldiers in honor of Doug,” pledged Jarrett.

To learn more about the foundation, visit www.don’tstopbelieving-us.blogspot.com or “like” its page on Facebook.