Posted By:
MAF Blogger Danny
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November 26th
2312 Hrs
San Jose, CA
My hotel room in Stockton

Well it has been one long heckuva day and I am sure we are all super tired, as I have been roaming these halls (of the Holiday Inn) in search of some Monster ® energy drink to help keep me chugging along. I have not seen a single MAF soul around, which means they’re all either working on preparing for tomorrow’s events or crashed out, exhausted, in their nice comfy beds.

This is a post-action report for the rally we held earlier today in San Jose. We had a great turnout in front of Celebration Community Church. We had lots of members from the community as well as some faithful supporters who had driven all the way up to our Sacramento event on the 23rd and then drove to San Jose to meet the tour there. We also had the student council from one local private school that had collected over 2500 hundred Christmas cards in their community to add to our growing pool which they handed to us in several large boxes, each one wrapped with Christmas paper.

One youngster, Chris, 11, who was there with his mom, asked me if he could help out in any way. What a nice guy he was, we gave him one of the sacks and asked if he would collect cards from all the attendees who were standing around, some with a handful, others with boxes full of Christmas cards, each envelope representing a little bit of holiday cheer to a soldier hard at work in Iraq and Afghanistan. Chris brought me back that same sack, full to the brim with cards, it was so heavy and full I was afraid it might rip because you could see the sharp edges of stacks of cards poking out and protruding through the felt material that made the bag.

These, with the 2500 we received from the students council, means we’ve collected a total of who-knows-what. We’re going to be counting all night, which is why I should wrap this post up quickly!

Deborah Johns talks about how tough it is to have an empty seat at the dinner table on Christmas

Buzz remembers how tough it was for him flying combat missions, thousands of miles away from family during the holidays

Diana Nagy sings it loud and proud for our troops

Chris and the girls in procession, delivering boxes packed full with cards for the troops

e-mail mafbloggerdanny@gmail.com for any feedback/comments/corrections.