Close Window Archive Copies of Newsletter Print
Marine Parents Logo a Place to Connect and Share 
MarineParents.com Newsletter
a Place to Connect & Share 
In This Issue
Graduation Announcements
Unit Information Pages
Vote for a Purple Heart Marine!
Care Package Holiday Shipping
Radio Talk Shows Support Our Troops
Marine Corps Marathon Team Update
Combat 101: Recruit Training
OAW Book Discussion Group
Send Email Support to Iraq!
Get Well Cards for Marines
$5 Coupon Expires October 13!
Support Our Marines!
The Care Package Project™
 
 
Operation PAL, an Outreach Program of Marine Parents.com
Operation PAL™
 
 
Purple Heart Hero Support™ an Outreach Program of Marine Parents.com
 
 
Team Marine Parents, an Outreach Program of Marine Parents.com 
Team Marine Parents™
 
Show your support of our Marines and their families at home! Partcipate in one of the MarineParents.com Outreach Programs today!  Our Marines need YOU!
Support for You:
a Place to
Connect & Share™
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
ATTENTION NAVY FAMILIES! 
New message board for Navy families and friends: Click Here...
Learning Center:
Operations Security
Operations Security OPSEC

NOTE: When communicating online, your Marine's privacy is as important as Operations Security. Please respect YOUR Marine's privacy!

Learning Center:
About Deployment
 
 
(from your Marine, with the USMC, and with other families)
 
(tips, tricks and money savers for mailing to YOUR Marine)
 
(bills, taxes, legal issues, injuries, notification from the Marine Corps)
 
 
Learning Center:
About Homecoming
 
 
 
 
 
(Tip: While in our store, check in your Marine's unit store for more homecoming shirts!)
Learning Center:
Bootcamp
 
 
 
 
Marine Corps Spirit
T-shirts, Gifts & More
Show your Marine Corps spirit and pride!  Proceeds from sales support MarineParents.com, an IRS approved 501(c)(3) public charity.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Marines The Few The Proud
Graduation Announcements!
Graduation Announcements are now available for your Soon-To-Graduate recruit! Use the coupon at the bottom of the newsletter to save $5!
Marine Corps Bootcamp Graduation Announcements
Visit Our Sponsors
Creative Cakery Cake
The Cakes are arriving in excellent condition in Iraq. They are withstanding the intense heat of the summer desert! Cakes can be shipped to any APO/FPO address.
 
 
Bad Feet in Iraq 2005
Don't let this happen to YOUR Marine! Visit Covert Threads for the best combat socks made!
Newsletter Signup 
Join Our Mailing List
October 10, 2007
Dear Marine Families,

If this is the first edition of the MarineParents.com Newsletter you have received, WELCOME! If you are a returning reader we are glad you have joined us.

The bonds that our Marines establish with one another are nothing short of incredible. The tight-knit community of the Marine Corps lends itself well to a "Semper Fi, Semper Family" attitude: Always Faithful, Always Family.  Pride and anxiety are emotions we, as Marine Corps families, experience daily; whether you are in the throes of bootcamp, deployment, or transitioning out, the emotions can be intense and often times those emotions come right on top of each other. You are not alone. There are thousands of family members who feel just like you. We hope you are able to connect with one another through the many websites and services offered through MarineParents.com. 
 
As one mother said after finding the web site in 2003, "I'm no less frightened, but a lot less alone."  Semper Family!
Unit Information Pages: UIP
EGA Find Your Marine's Unit Information 
If your Marine is active duty and assigned to a permanent duty station, you can connect with families in that unit immediately by using the "Unit Information Page", or UIP, a unique feature offered only at MarineParents.com.  Search for your son or daughter's unit in the simple interface and you'll quickly locate information and message boards with those families.
 
Cosmo's Most Eligible Bachelor
Neil Schalk Cosmopolitan Bachelor of the Year WisconsinVote for a Purple Heart Marine! 
Twenty-one year old former Marine Neil Schalk is much more than a "hot bachelor" and the subject of attention for many young women. He is a Purple Heart hero from Muscoda, Wisconsin. He and his family are very involved with Team Marine Parents™ and Purple Heart Hero Support™. Neil's sister Natalee, has nominated him as Cosmopolitan's Bachelor of the Year, 2007.

Hurry! Voting ends at midnight eastern time October 11.  You can vote once each day.

Care Package Holiday Shipping
Marine getting care packages in IraqDeadlines for Shipping Care Packages Overseas for the Holidays
If you want to get holiday gifts to a service member deployed overseas by Dec. 25, it's time to start thinking about mail deadlines.

The first suggested deadline of Nov. 13 is for packages going by parcel post to deployed troops and those living on overseas installations, according to the U.S. Postal Service. Parcel post may be the slowest option, but it's the cheapest, too. For packages to arrive by the start of Hanukkah, at sundown Dec. 4, they should be mailed by Oct. 23.
 
Radio Talk Show Hosts
We need your help to contact radio stations to Support Our Troops! 
Certificate to Radio Stations for Participation in Troop SupportOne of the missions of MarineParents.com is community awareness to Support Our Troops. We have three projects that directly support the troops and their families:
  • The Care Package Project™
  • Operation PAL™
  • Purple Heart Hero Support™
We're working with local and national radio stations around the U.S. to spread the word to Support Our Troops through these programs, encouraging their listeners to donate and raise funds toward specific goals and projects established by the Radio Stations.
 
We provide all the components the radio station will need to make this work--all they do is talk to their listeners about the project.
 
If you know of a radio station that would like to Support Our Troops, please contact them about this program. If you are a radio station owner, programmer, producer or talk-show host, please contact us for additional information on how you and your listeners can directly Support Our Troops!
 
Marine Corps Marathon
 2007 Team Marine Parents All ParticipantsTeam Marine Parents™ Progress Update: 
Training and Fundraising Goals
 
If you're a frequent reader of the newsletter you know Team Marine Parents™ has been training hard to compete in this years Marine Corps Marathon and 10K in Washington, DC this October 28, 2007.  We've got team members ranging from 21 to 50+ competing in both events.
 
The goal of Team Marine Parents™ is to raise awareness in local communities for Troop Support. Each team member has selected an Outreach Project to promote and raise funds toward.
 
We need your help with one of those goals. LCpl. Josef Lopez, our Marine who has gone from Wheelchair to Marathon in under a year, has set a goal of $5000 for Purple Heart Hero Support™. The project provides lunches to families while their Marines are recovering at Bethesda Hospital in Maryland.  I'd like to ask you to help Josef meet his goal while supporting the families of our injured Marines at the same time. Let's show Josef our support for him competing in the Marathon and help him reach his goal!
 
 
 
Combat 101: Recruit Training
 MCRD Parris Island Crucible Recruit with WeaponArticle Subheading
MCRD/ERR PARRIS ISLAND, S.C. (Oct. 4, 2007) -- It's two miles, several obstacles and an hour plus of nerve-wracking silence, sweat and mind-numbing concentration. It's the Crucible's Endurance Course and it's an exercise that pits a recruit's entire three months of training into one event.

This is how Platoon 4030, November Company, 4th Recruit Training Battalion and Platoon 3080, Mike Company, 3rd RTBn., began the Endurance Course on Event Five during the Crucible Sept. 27 and 28.
 
 
Once a Warrior: Wired For Life
Once a Warrior Wired for LifeBook Discussion Group Now Online 
We've opened a new discussion group for family members and military personnel to have discussions with one another about the book Once a Warrior, Wired for Life. You'll find the discussion group here: USMCParents.com
 
The authors, Dr. Bridget Cantrell and Chuck Dean, (also of the critically acclaimed book on PTSD, Downrange to Iraq), have once again written a self-help guide that will assist the families of Warriors understand "why" the civilian world is tough for anyone who has been in combat (downrange). The book will guide the Warrior through different scenarious, validate the feelings and emotions and difficulties they face at homecoming, and provide them with practical, useful suggestions for living life as a civilian. The authors take this one step further by encouraging our Warriors to make good use of their military skills outside the military--yes, even infantrymen have skills and qualities that will be useful in civilian professions.
 
 
Proud Americans: Send Your Email Support!
 Send an Email to Marines in Iraq 
MarineParents.com SealThe CO of USMC Regimental Combat Team (RCT) 6 in Iraq, is asking for 6,000 positive emails to his Marines. Please take a moment to send a thank you to these Marines. It doesn't have to have a lot of detail: just a thank you for their service and sacrifice, encouragement that the American public is behind them, and prayers for their continued success. The email address is:
RCT-6lettersfromh@gcemnf-wiraq.usmc.mil
In the subject line, please put "Thank You Marine, from MarineParents.com".
Get Well Cards for Marines
Operation PAL, an Outreach Program of Marine Parents.com Keeping Up with Operation PAL™ 
The folks at Operation PAL™ are staying busy sending your get-well cards and letters to over 35 Marines in the program.  Our Outreach Director is now making it easier for you to keep up with the news of our Marines and Navy Corpsmen who need your prayers and letters through a news page that she'll keep updated on the web site.
 
Take a peek at the news from Linda, grab your stack of cards and an ink pen, and let's let these Marines know how much we appreciate their sacrifices.
 
 

We hope this week's edition of our email newsletter has been useful for you and your family. If there are topics you would like us to address, or if you have other suggestions for the newsletter, please contact us.

The banner used at the top of this newsletter is a USMC photo at HADITHAH, Iraq- 1/3 Marines. Photo by: Cpl. Stephen M. Kwietniak, 08/06/2007. Click here to read accompanying story.

MarineParents.com, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) public charity. MarineParents.com, Inc. was founded in January, 2003 in response to parents' needs to find information and to Connect & Share™ with one another during deployments. Our free online services and connections have expanded to support and educate Marine moms & dads, spouses, families and friends and we'll be offering the 3rd Annual National Conference in Washington DC, 2008. We've helped over 40,000 Marine and recruit families during bootcamp, training, active duty and deployments. We've shipped thousands of care packages overseas to our Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan, sent thousands of prayers and letters to injured Marines and served hundreds of lunches to families caring for their Marines at Bethesda Hospital. You've found a Place to Connect & Share™.

God Bless and Semper Fidelis,
 

Tracy Della Vecchia
Founder and Executive Director
MarineParents.com, Inc.
 
Neither the United States Marine Corps nor any other component of the Department of Defense has approved, endorsed, or authorized this service.
Land of the Free Tiny Gif$5 Off Coupon
Receive $5 off any order of $50 or more. Enter coupon code WACKYFENCES at checkout. Restrictions apply. Limited time only. Visit the web site for more details.
 
HURRY! Offer expires October 13!
 
NOTE: All proceeds are used in support of MarineParents.com, Inc., and IRS approved 501(c)(3) public charity.
New "First to Fight" Design! Check these out!