With just a few days until the new year, our unstoppable team is already preparing the first few shipments of care packages for Frontline Responders fighting COVID-19. We will recognize the sacrifices they made being separated from their loved ones and spending the holidays in hospitals, squad cars, fire trucks, and ambulances. Our hope is you will consider making an end of year tax-deductible contribution to expand Operation Gratitude’s impact across the country this January.

For the past few weeks, we have been focused on the very reason Operation Gratitude was started 18 years ago -- ensuring that Deployed Troops know they are not forgotten, especially during the holidays. Think about what we are accomplishing with you. In the midst of a global pandemic, we are working tirelessly to assemble and deliver 20,000 individually addressed Care Packages to service members in every corner of the world.

December 9, 2020 it will be three years since I joined our Founder, Carolyn Blashek, and 2,000 other grateful Americans at my first Operation Gratitude Assembly Day. What I saw that day took my breath away. In that moment I realized the true potential of this amazing organization that now impacts more than one million volunteers and a half million service men and women and their families each year.

Last week, with your help, Operation Gratitude was able to do the impossible. In the midst of a global pandemic, our team and our volunteers delivered care packages to 27,000 veterans in all 50 states and Washington DC. We did more than just deliver care packages — we went a step beyond saying “thank you for your service.” We honored those veterans and their service by serving them. We lifted their spirits and gave them hope. We connected with and touched the lives of thousands of veterans who were homebound and isolated. We expressed appreciation to thousands more who heard those five words for the very first time. As one Vietnam Veteran in Baltimore told us “I will remember this for the rest of my life.”

This week, our country celebrated the 245th anniversary of the United States Marine Corps and Veterans Day. As the son of a Marine, 20-year Marine veteran, and the father of a Marine, it pains me to see our country divided. Much like 9/11, Veterans Day this year will come and go without an opportunity to bring communities together in large numbers and celebrate the two things we need right now to reunite America — service, and gratitude. This premise may seem far fetched to some but think back to what it was like 19 years ago on September 12th when our entire nation was united because we heard and answered the call to serve together. Recall the last time you stood alongside your neighbor at a community event or parade to express appreciation to those who serve. Remember the pride you felt like an American when you volunteered with other grateful citizens who joined forces to give back to their community or others less fortunate in a hands-on way.

We believe that a grateful nation that serves together is a united nation. In our lives, and in America, there is a common thread that demonstrates service to others will bridge divides. And we have seen firsthand that this solidarity of service is the best way, and perhaps the only way, to reunite our country.

On October 26, we celebrated the National Day of the Deployed. Operation Gratitude did what we always do to recognize those who are currently serving and those who have served in our military -- we took action. This October, we will assemble and deliver more than 26,000 Care Packages to veterans in all 50 states and DC. Many of these recipients will be isolated and homebound on Veterans Day. Just a few weeks later we will assemble and deliver our signature, Holiday Care Packages to 20,000 Deployed Troops around the world in the midst of a global pandemic.

My career in the Marine Corps was marked by two bookends — from my first deployment as a young Second...

The story in today's post is very personal to me, and I am sharing it with you because it illustrates so clearly what many young men and women experience when they are deployed — many of them separated from their families for the very first time.

Every Care Package delivery will include our signature paracord “survival” bracelets, because we have learned over the past decade that it is not just a paracord bracelet... it is a symbol of appreciation and the strong bonds that Operation Gratitude forges between Americans and their military and first responder heroes.

I’ve heard it hundreds, if not thousands, of times since I started as the CEO of Operation Gratitude three years ago — handwritten letters are the most cherished items in our Care Packages. As a Marine who deployed to more than 50 countries -- from the first Gulf War in 1990 -1991 to my time in the Middle East during 2008 -- I can tell you nothing boosts morale while you are deployed more than receiving handwritten letters.

Each year Operation Gratitude receives tens of thousands of Beanie Babies from grateful Americans across the country, and one goes in every single care package we send to service members deployed around the world.