By Dan Shea
This issue of SAR is being handed out at two prominent U.S. military shows; Modern Day Marine and AUSA - the Association of the United States Army. Since so many of the new readers are active duty or retired military, we'd like to thank you for your service, and remind you of our "Cookies from Home for Shooters" program. Simply give us an APO or FPO address and we will send a box of approximately 30 back issues of SAR to the deployed service member at no charge. If you're a reader and you think you would like to sponsor sending a box, please do: just send a check to us for this purpose. One military box costs $12.95 to send, so 10 boxes would be $129.50, 100 boxes would be $1,295. Our readers would be proud to realize how many people have stepped up to the plate and donated shipping costs to the troops since 2003.
SAR constantly receives thank you letters from the troops, dating back to the first build up in the current war; where Jeff Zimba made sure that the "Troop Greeters" in the airport at Bangor, Maine had a constant supply of SAR to hand out to the troops both passing through on the way to Iraq or Afghanistan, or on the way home. We have a firearms magazine, and that's what we can give, and of course many of our troops are firearms enthusiasts so it's a good fit.
For those who are unaware, the Secretary of the Army, the Honorable Pete Geren, had 10,000 copies of SAR picked up and taken to the combat zone to hand out. We had already responded to the former Under Secretary of the Navy, the Honorable Dionel Aviles (an avid SAR reader) and he had the United States Marines show up at our printer and accept our donation of 10,000 copies of SAR for the USMC. These went in-country and the response was stunning: they love the magazine. What more can you expect from "The Gun Club" as the USMC is sometimes referred to...
In any event, our estimate is that we have sent over 120,000 copies of SAR to the troops deployed in Afghanistan, Iraq, on ships, and at bases as far as Korea and Djibouti. I remember one young Marine who was ticked off because his "Cookies from Home for Shooters" box came to the unit in Djibouti and his fellow Marines in time-honored fashion popped the box of goodies, split up his gear, and he came in and found them voraciously reading his SARs. He, in time-honored fashion, simply gave up because his brothers-in-arms were reading his firearms magazines and well, other than them breaking them in, no harm done and all had a good read.
We've had many stories from readers who deployed and when they got to their outpost in the puckerbrush, they climbed into the back of a beat up Humvee and found- dog-eared copies of SAR scattered around the back for some good down-time reading.
We at SAR have been supporting the troops in this way since day one. We believe in you. We hope that during your tour, if you were lucky enough to find copies of SAR or have them sent from us, that you enjoyed them and they helped pass the time or educate you a bit on the small arms in today's world, as well as the historical arms used by some of the old fossils who contribute to this magazine.
God Bless, God speed, come home soon and watch six. -Dan
This article first appeared in Small Arms Review V15N1 (October 2011) |
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