Embracing a Healthy Family: HELP BRING A GI IN HARM'S WAY A LITTLE CLOSER TO HIS FAMILY

Excellent program to support your military families! The USO helps to unite the separated loved ones and you can help with the upcoming holiday season. I know when my husband was in Iraq three year's ago at Christmas time, he loved every package he received from me. Not all soldiers are so lucky and some can't afford to send much as the salary of an enlisted soldier isn't much. My husband is one of the "lucky" ones in which his tours don't normally put him on the streets fighting so he does have the ability to communicate with me frequently. Each assignment is different so we'll see how next Christmas will be when he's in Kuwait.

See the message from the USO on how you can help this year:

As military deployments tear families apart, United Through Reading helps bring them together. Thanks to this program, GIs who are thousands of miles away from home and loved ones can still read a bedtime story to their kids every night.

In 62 locations around the globe, the USO's United Through Reading volunteers make DVDs of GIs reading children's books – like "Goodnight Moon" or "The Cat In The Hat" – aloud. The DVD and the book are then mailed to the kids back home to show them that mommy or daddy, though far away, is in fact OK.

Program participants tell of children touching the TV screen or talking back to the recorded image of their parent every time the DVD is played. And troops in harm's way will line up for hours just for the chance to make a recording for their kids.

In less than three years, the United Through Reading program has exploded. Over 50,000 recordings have been made this year, and 100,000 are projected for 2010. Your donation will help the USO provide the cameras (many are wearing out from overuse)... the books… the DVDs and mailers... even the boxes of tissues that must be placed in every recording location.

Our men and women in uniform give up so much when they go off to war on our behalf. Please help the USO bring them a little closer to the loved ones left behind by supporting United Through Reading as generously as you can. On behalf of those we serve, Thank You!