03 February 2010

NY Angel's Texas Adventure

Marie Wheeler-Nicholson is our Nassau County Community Team Leader. She has shared this report about her trip to the new Soldiers' Angels Warehouse in San Antonio, TX.



Hello NY Team!

On Wednesday I had the opportunity to travel to Texas with Caren Vink who we all know as one of the forces behind Soldiers' Angels and our team leader director. Caren's itinerary was to follow up on some business with the new vet-run Soldiers' Angels warehouse in San Antonio Texas! Somewhere I have always wanted to visit but never had the opportunity.

This was also an opportunity to actually meet Caren who I have worked with for over a year and was coming from her home town in Michigan. We met up, no time for chit chat, grabbed a cab and got right to the warehouse where we were greeted by Jeff Bader and some of the crew who are running the operations there. They were hard at work coordinating efforts for the exhibit space to be ready for the opening in March. The new San Antonio Soldiers' Angels facility is truly alive with the passion for what we all work for as volunteers.

When I encountered Mr. Jeff Bader he was in his office which was filled with medals, photos, artifacts and was tackling the very sobering task of reading the (too many) KIA letters from families of our fallen. Jeff described some of the SA space to be an 'Angel Landing' and it truly felt like a 'home away from home' already.

On Thursday, we were allowed the honor of a personal tour of Fisher House where the gracious manager spoke of Soldiers' Angels in very endearing terms as some of the 'finest people' she has ever worked with.

Another inspiring moment was to be able to meet up with Mr. Toby Nunn. As my grandfather was also army and an author, it was a defining moment in my life to shake hands with a modern 'regular army' soldier who had written an insightful book about his experiences in Iraq as a Stryker Brigade Combat Leader. His book, Northern Disclosure is off the shelf, (excuse the pun).

I tried to make myself as useful as possible and spent our last day screening through hundreds of cards and letters to be packed off for the Chaplains' support and distributed overseas to our troops and wounded.

The trip to Texas reinforced the passions that we all share as Soldiers' Angels to accomplish our mission as volunteers in our communities to support our military.

I am both grateful and humbled by this trip and wanted to share this with you all.

It is truly amazing to be able to be a part of this historical and humanitarian organization, Soldiers' Angels!


Thank you, Marie, for sharing your experiences, and thanks for all you do for Soldiers' Angels!

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Thank you for sharing. Wow. Fly Angel, fly! Angel Juel in Oregon

Unknown said...

It must have brought shivers down your spine walking into the warehouse for the first time.

brat said...

Thanks for sharing your amazing trip with us here, Marie!

julie morelli said...

Inspiring!! Thanks for sharing Marie!!