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Ya, know... all the stuff that's happened in the past few years, the tragedies, this damned war, just all of it... when people are in desperate need of stuff, it not like they NEED posters or cds or whatever, so that sort of leaves us out of the loop in terms of making it personal. What I mean is that when we give (and I mean a collective "we" as in "us" and "you" too) it's either money or canned food, blankets, staple-stuff, but it's not personal. And that's fine, because it's just needed and that's it, that's all.

But, this chance just so happened to come along, and it was a fun sort of thing to do, and something we could actually pitch in with personally, something special, not too heavy or depressing, and just right up our alley. (Both Joseph and William are big-time gamers. I sort of just watch, or maybe jump in, very rarely, to sneak a peek at a puzzle or something).

And, yes there's still a war, but meanwhile, the troops need some kind of a "pick-me-up," even if it's just a few hours worth of fun and games. When we heard what David and his group were doing, we were like "All right! Finally, something we could actually contribute that would be fun."

So, yeah. It was cool, and the soldiers really look like they had fun. (I'm still waiting on permission to post some photos, since they are of real people and we don't know them).

Here's part of another email we got, just to give you an idea of how much even little things meant to these guys.

Quote:

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As much as we all enjoyed this event, it would have been almost NOTHING if it weren't for the folks back home showing their support for us in this environment. They were the ones who donated the dozens of thousands of dollars worth of gaming material that we ALL got a chance to walk away with. While we had the big-name publishers dishing stuff out for us, we also had the "mom & pop" game shops helping out, as well as the individual gamers who were willing to donate their own gaming gear. 20+ year-old gaming dice?! Heck, I, personally, won't forget the feeling I got from holding that 4-book stack of old-school AD&D books from 1978!

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And I have to say that I can't get the picture out of my head of a kid (I can say "kid" because he looked soooo young to me) holding a big gun, an automatic something-or-other. He looked very serious and a bit sad as he was presumably just arriving. He showed up in a later photo with a gamebook and dice, (which is what someone his age should be holding), and he still looked rather serious but in a good way... like he was trying to puzzle out his next move and having fun doing it.

Anyway, it left a warm fuzzy feeling, just thought I'd share.

Later,
Chris