Confusaled: Thank you

Recently a good friend of mine e-mailed me the following about her son (one of my old students) who is a Marine and overseas for his second tour of duty:

From: BG
Sent: Friday, March 13, 2009 6:03 AM
Subject: favor to ask re Jorel

As you all know, Jorel is in the sandbox again. He’s in a relatively safe place, and hopefully will stay there his entire deployment (should be home in September). I have a favor to ask all of you – ok, two favors. Jorel will be 21 soon, and he’s feeling pretty lonesome. While it would probably embarrass him a little, that’s okay - I know he would actually love it if he were to receive a bunch of birthday cards. Would you please send him one? It takes about 10 days to get mail, which is why I’m asking so early.

Thanks in advance,
BG

I have known Jorel since he was a freshman in my English class, and his mother since I started working at SHS. This "favor" was a no brainer: Of course I'll send Jorel a card.

You know me, any excuse to buy a card is good for me! J and I were out running errands last Saturday and I told him that I needed to find a birthday card for Jorel. Now, J has never met Jorel, he's only met Jorel's family (his little brother house sits for us when we go out of town, I am good friends with his mom, and his dad has been at the house when we've dropped off keys before leaving town). But he was more than happy to help me look for a card. He likes the family, and is quite patriotic.

We may have different views about war, but J and I agree 100% on one thing: the troops deserve our support. And if Jorel is homesick and about to have a birthday, the least we can do is send him a card.

Or five.

Seriously. We sent him five cards.

Once we got started, we couldn't stop. I think we stood in front of the display at Fred Meyer for approximately 45 minutes. Then, we went to Hallmark to see what else they had there.

I labeled each envelope with a description of when he should open it. Though, if he's anything like me, he'll open all five of them the day he gets it. I have no self control. Sometimes it's embarrassing. Most of the time, though, it's in private so I don't worry too much. Most of the time.

Here are the five cards we picked.

This first one pretty accurately sums up my thoughts. Jorel is not the only former student (or son of a good friend) who has gone off to war. Thank God they both made it back safely. Rod is still safe at home (his four years were up and he didn't re-enlist), and I'm praying that Jorel comes home safely again.

The next two are birthday cards. He's turning 21. He's in the military. J had a BLAST picking these cards out!

This one has sound. (Which is why it got blurry and a bit shadowed when I scanned it - the little speaker inside is bulky...)

Easter follows quickly on the heels of Jorel's birthday this year, so we thought we'd throw one of those cards in, too.

This last card (for the time being...I now have his address. And I still have an unfortunate addiction to Hallmark cards...this is not the last he'll hear from me...poor kid.)

Because five cards wasn't enough, we also picked out some postcards with pictures of home for him. Well, technically he calls California home now as that's where he's stationed, but surprisingly we couldn't find any postcards of California at the Fred Meyer in Kennewick. Shocking, I know, in a booming metropolis such as this.

Oh, well.

Here are the postcards we included. (I put one in each card so he'll get a new one with each card he opens.)