Anybody want to share where they are or where they consider home in one spot here on the Forum?  Perhaps even home locations of their contacts?  This would be a central spot if looking to meet up with another local supporter or possibly find if someone has a contact from their hometown.    Suggest you put your state in the subject line and town or other information in the body. 

 

Debbie

I have lived in Northern CA all my life.  For the last 20 years I have lived in the Central Valley...small town near Modesto called Patterson.  I grew up in the San Francisco East Bay Area and still consider that area "home".  Got a degree in Stockton. Lived in India for a year.  Have family roots in the mountains of NC (and lots of cousins still there and in the Southeast), although my Mom was born in Hawaii and my sister lives outside of San Diego.  Dad lives in Arkansas.  Step sisters live in Wyoming and Bakersfield, CA.  Have other family in Nevada and Alberta, Canada.

 

Don't have much information on hometowns of my troops as yet.  Would love to find a contact from "home".

 

Hope we get lots of activity on this.

 

Thanks.

 

Debbie

I'm from Houston, been here all of my life. But, during the school year, I'm up Huntsville, Tx. I travel a lot to New Mexico and Colorado... One of my contacts is from a small town in Utah, another is actually from just outside Huntsville, Tx, and few from Houston. I don't know about the others yet. :)

I'm from Texas.  I live on the mainland close to Galveston Island.  Been here all my life.  I am a retiree from Valero Energy after 40 yrs of service as a lab tech.  Most of my time now is devoted to supporting the troops.  Being on a fixed income and thanks to the economy I don't get to send as many packages as I did earlier but my letters of encouragement are still going out on time every day. During the day I campaign for "Any Soldier" with flyers and pin an AS card on any bulletin board I can find.

Are there any supporters from the south Texas area?

I grew up in Alton, IL--just across the river from St.Louis. I left home to go to college at University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and then to nursing school in Little Rock, AR. I have lived in Harrison, Sherwood, and Russellville, Ark. Also lived in Broken Arrow, Ok., Garland and DeSoto, TX. Guess I am just a rambler. I have taken travel nursing assignments in St.Louis, Cambridge,MA, Colebrook, CT, Tallahassee, FL, New Bern, NC, San Francisco and LA. I don't think I will stay in Texas when I retire. My sister is in Ft Smith, AR and I will probably move back to Arkansas somewhere. The Arkansas connection is through my mother. She was born and raised there and I spent my summers on the farm there with my grandmother. My sister and I still have the farm, but rent it out.

I was born and raised in the central part of Illinois, in a very small town, Toledo, the county seat of Cumberland County. I've got six siblings - two brothers and four sisters. At the age of 18 I married Jack, and we moved to Tennessee, where he was raised. Thirty years later, we're still married, still living in Tennessee. We moved around a lot the first five years we were married, but in 1983 we bought 3 1/2 acres in Cheatham County, just northwest of Nashville, and we've been living on that 3 1/2 acres ever since. We've got two grown sons, seven beautiful grandkids, and somewhere between 80 and 90 adopted troops. I can't send as many care packages as I would like to; we all know what's been going on with gas and grocery prices, with no increase in income, and we've got our son and his family living with us for who knows how long (Shawn, Jini, and their two little ones Ana, 2 yr.old, and Jeremy, almost 2 months old) I don't let it keep me from writing lots and lots of letters, MotoMails, e-mailing, chatting via Instant Messenger, and otherwise keeping in touch with every one of our heroes. When I do get the opportunity to send a care package I try to make sure it's a really good one!

I love the forums - and I like this "meet and greet" thread...great idea! 

Greetings from Kansas! I have lived all my life, (over 50 years), in the cookie cutter part of the state.  My little community is only 4 square blocks but we are in the heart of things.  Only an hour from Topeka in one direction, KC metro area in another and St. Joseph, Mo area in a third.  Just a little over a hour's drive to Nebraska or Iowa.  In the heart of mid country history: Lewis & Clark, Pony Express, Oregon Trail, Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad and of course Amelia Earhart.  My husband and I have 2 grown sons, and are very impatiently awaiting the birth of our first grandchild, a boy, in October.  Our adopted "kids" consist of 6 dogs and a cat who share our home .

When I'm not mailing packages or reading the forum or working on a quilting block for the "bees", I teach English/language arts and special education classes at a state juvenile correctiona facility for males ages 12-18. I also am secretary of the local Ladies Auxilliary of the VFW.  I got involved with AS about 3 years ago after my oldest son joined the Army.  He is on his second deployment, currently in Afghanistan.  We are hoping he can be home in late October to meet his son when he arrives (or shortly after he gets here).

Thanks for starting this thread!

Yes, I'm a Cheesehead!!  I've lived in WI my whole life, the past 12 years in the west-central part of the state about an hour east of Minneapolis/St. Paul.  Our house is for sale--my husband of 24 years, Fred,  has been working in northeast WI for a year and a half now. (Anyone need a house in WI??!!)    We have two daughters in college--Erica is currently applying to medical schools, and Katie will be a sophomore. Fred has 3 daughters from his first marriage, and we have 11 grandkids, 3 Huskies, and 5 cats!

  I taught high school English for 15 years, and after our move here managed a gift store for 5. Right now the troops are my "job!"   I've been doing this for 4 years, and I love it!  I've met 3 of my soldiers and one other forum member in person so far. I REALLY hope a junkie convention is in our futures!!! 

 Born and raised in Brooklyn NY( hence my forum name) East Flatbush . Moved to Jersey shore with my family. My Dad retired from NYC police dept.He also was in the Navy at the tail end of the Korean War ( Tin Can sailor) My brother ( deceased) retired from the Army after 20 years and worked in Maryland at Aberdeen conducting tests on some of the very equipment our troops are using now. I am the oldest of 4. 2 boys 2 girls. Have 5 children ages 20 to 29. One son in the Army, 1 married daughter who lives in PA and 3 girls still in college and will be a first time grandma in a couple of weeks or days. My husband is retired from Lucent Tech and works PT for our school system. I am a RN working FT at a community hospital near our house.

Another Jersey Girl here!  Technically I was born in the Bronx, but we moved to the house my mom still lives in when I was a few weeks old.  I now live one town over, and my four years at Michigan State (Go Green!) was the only time I didn't live right here.  We're about 27mi from NYC, 45mi from PA.  It's awesome here.  I'm an only child, and so is my husband Frank.  He's the IT manager at Arrow Fastener Company (you handy folks might know them for their staple guns :o) and I work part time in the fund raising foundation for Saint Barnabas Medical Center.  The rest of the time I'm home with our 2 boys, Zack (6) and Mason (4) who are insane, adorable, crazy-smart and in constant motion.

I bet the contacts I have are some of the same ones the rest of you have LOL  Many of them I realize I don't know where they're originally from, now that I think about it, but here are the ones I know something about:  Seabee Shane is stationed in MS but is from upstate NY (though he's a Sox fan, don't know how that happened LOL), 2 are stationed in GA and while one lives there the other is from TN, but I'm not sure where.  Another is stationed in HI, but I don't know where he originally hails from, and the best for last: I have a contact who has lived all over northern NJ in the towns surrounding me, and it turns out that his grandfather was my mechanical drawing teacher in middle school.  How cool is that???!!!

I am from Orange County, CA, and have lived here for pretty much all my life.  I have a daughter who is a year and a half old (she's the one in my avatar) and a husband who works for a tech company.  I'm an attorney here in Orange County.  I also have a 13 year old (gulp!) dog.

I'm mostly a lurker, but my favorite place here on the forums, if I had to pick, is the active thread list. Keeps me up to date! 

 

I was born and raised in Manhattan Beach, California.  I moved to NorthWest Oregon (Salem Area) in 1990.  Raised three childern on my own.  In 1997 I moved to Eastern Oregon.  I live in a pretty small town, La Grande, population 21,000.   This is the home of  Eastern Oregon University.   In 1999 I met my husband and gained 4 more children !!  All of our children are out on their own.  We now have 9 grandchildren so there is never a dull moment at our house!  My husband is in route/sales for a large bakery. I work in a group home attending to the needs of 5 disabled adults.  My extended family lives in California.  One sister in Northern CA, Gilroy. The rest live in Southern CA.  A brother in Riverside, another sister in Escondido and my Mom in Corona.  I do have to mention my 98 year old grandmother who still lives on her own in San Diego. 

    I currently live in Las Vegas, Nevada where I have been for the past 2 years, one of which I spent a year in Vermont at school. Before Nevada I lived in Montgomery, Alabama; Oregon, Ohio; and Grand Rapids, Michigan. I have enjoyed everywhere I have lived and love traveling, seeing new places. I have one brother, 14 months younger, and we get along really well. I also have family up in Ripon and Stockton CA. I am considering moving up there to help out my grandparents while I finish up school, but I will finish my associates first as I am close to that and will see how everything works out. I would love to meet fellow supporters from around here if there are any.

I do not know yet exactly where my contacts are as I just sent out my first set of letters and packages last week. (It was rather exciting!)

 

Hope to hear from more of you 

Ashley 

Hello from Halstead, Kansas.  It is a small community west of Wichita, we have been here for 12 years. Originally from Texas, where my family still resides and hopefully we will be able to go back one day.  We have 4 grown children, 3 girls and one son. Who is in the Military and has served one tour in Iraq and is getting ready for his second, sometine toward the end of the year.  One of my contacts unit is from Oklahoma, one from Missouri and one from Italy. 

Yes.......another person  ORIGINALLY from NY (I wrote it twice cause I do consider it home).   I now live in SC and before that CA.   I was born and raised on LongIsland (Mineola) and stayed there til I got married.   I married a Marine and we moved to CA (mostly in the Oceanside/San Diego areas).   We had three children together and then after many years got divorced.   I moved back to NY to live with my family and they helped with the children.   But after being out of NY for so long, I could not handle the winters.   The first winter I was back was the horribly icy winters (even got stuck on the highway going to work).   So, I loaded up the car and we moved south where my sis-in-law had moved (after my brother -- her husband passed).   I have lived in SC for almost 15 years.   I call NY my home cause I still have FAMILY there.   And there are always things to do in NY.  I certainly miss a good Broadway Show or a decent baseball game.......but everything in life is a trade-off.    I go to NY at least twice a year to visit.  The best thing about all the moves is that I was able to transfer with my job as a letter carrier in the USPS and kept in great shape.   If you were to ask my children I think they would say NY too......as they also try to keep in touch with their cousins, etc and miss them.     Ah......  New York, New York........a wonderful town........the Bronx is up and the Battery's down.......the people ride in a hole in the ground......

Have a great weekend everyone........

Love peace and blessings..........Anne Marie