Kids pledge to buoy troops' spirit
By Treena Shapiro
Advertiser Staff Writer
Soldiers of Lt. Mike Baskin's platoon have no family in Hawai'i, but they can expect lots of aloha to arrive in the mail while they are deployed to Afghanistan for the next year.
Photo courtesy of The Rev. John C. Berger
The 150 students at Cathedral School in Nu'uanu have adopted the 25th Infantry Division platoon, pledging to write letters and e-mails to the 25 soldiers until they return.
Soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division (Light) met students at Cathedral School before the troops headed to Afghanistan.
The students and several of the soldiers met at the school on Tuesday, before Baskin left the country. His platoon will be meeting him in Afghanistan this week.
Staff Sgt. Claudio Rodriguez said he came up with the idea so soldiers would be sure to receive handwritten notes and artwork during their year away.
The letters would let the soldiers know "at least somebody is praying for you. With all this bad stuff you're hearing on the news, when you get this letter from a 5-, 6-, or 7-year-old, it's pretty good," Rodriguez said.
Many of the soldiers in this platoon are from the Dominican Republic and Jamaica, Rodriguez said. Some have large families and can expect to get several letters, but others may hear only from their mothers. "Some of them are sometimes lonely, especially on their first deployment," he said.
Holidays can be especially rough, and he hopes the kids might send some cheer to the troops.
"Letters are one of the biggest things you can have. It shows you that somebody else cares about what you are doing," he said.
Fifth-grader Darren Matsuda said his class has written one letter offering the soldiers support. "They're helping our country, and they're helping the Afghanistan people to rebuild their schools and churches," he said.
Eighth-grader Makanalani Gomes will be leaving Cathedral soon for high school, but she hopes to keep in touch with the platoon even after she has entered high school.
"It's so important that they know we really support them and what they're doing, and that we help them and let them know that they're fighting for our freedom and let them know that we are thankful for that," she said.
The Rev. John Berger, the administrator of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace, helped get the platoon and school together after a parishioner, retired Lt. Col. Matthew Sweeney, met Baskin at a West Point graduates dinner.
Berger said it is good for the students at the parish school to get to know the soldiers. "It maybe helps them to put a face to what's going on in the things they're hearing about the Middle East," he said.
In addition to letters, the school will also send care packages, Berger said.
Sweeney said it will be nice for the soldiers to receive handmade items. "That stuff is going to mean an immense amount to the soldiers," he said. "It just shows someone back here cares about them."
Reach Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8014.
