In December of 2003, I was waiting in line at the grocery store and glanced at the magazine rack. A picture of three young soldiers in desert camo,with the 1st Armored patch on their sleeves, stood out. TIME Person of the Year – The American Soldier. Since my son was wearing that same uniform, with that same patch, and was downrange that holiday season – it was quite a surprise.
Now there is a movement online – to make the Military Family the TIME Person of the Year. This was started by Kristen Tsetsi – author of Homefront and other books, who decided that she wanted to see military families get the attention that they deserve. Since the burden of 2 wars, 10 years of multiple deployments is sitting on the shoulders of one percent of the American public and the other 99% have no idea what is going on, this is an attention getter!
The website “Like” it for TIME – LIFT contains what is being called “Yellow Ribbon Interviews” including an interview with 3 children who give their point of view as only a child can – interviews with couples about deployment, comments from spouses. The recent letter writing campaign download is also available. The mass mailing was on March 4th (March FORTH) but the more letters TIME Magazine gets- the better! So please, download, change, tweak, add to… print, sign and mail it out. The decision to use “snail mail” was to inundate the mailroom of the magazine. No word yet on how that worked out.
There are further campaigns planned, so keep your eye on the Facebook page for LIFT . If you know any press – alert them to this campaign! Blog it, Facebook it, Tweet it. Get the word out! If you are a milspouse, a milbrat, if your grandfather served, or if your child is in uniform, please get the word out.
KSF
