books for soldiers
I'm no fan of war, and I'm certainly no fan of
this war. But we have to support the troops who are just doing their jobs...and for a lot of them, doing their
second job, that whole "defend your country" thing, while their "real" lives are put on hold. Ever since the tens of thousands of our soldiers were deployed to all points elsewhere, I've wanted to do
something to support the troops. I've seen so many "send stuff here!" web sites, many of them hastily put together and, frankly, looking like scams. Ten years of working with the Web gives one a fairly jaded outlook on these things.
So today
Mac posted a link to
Books for Soldiers, which has a great tagline: "care packages for the mind". Essentially, there's a forum where military folks, their families, whomever, can request books -- or just cards and letters -- from those of us with the free time and extra books.
I don't personally know anyone in the military, and certainly no one overseas, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to read through the requests and look through my bookshelf and find something to send to
someone. I'm sure there aren't any requests for Emile Zola paperbacks, which is what I mostly have, but I'll find something! If anyone has extra books laying around, and some free time to search the requests, I'd recommend the process. After all, no one hates war more than the soldiers fighting it...the least I can do is send them some happy mail.
