Donations range from $10 to $25,000, but all matter

By Andrew Dys - adys@heraldonline.com

The letter was written in the script of an old woman. Sweeping curves, perfect penmanship, by hand in ink on yellow lined paper. No computers for this woman. She had read in The Herald about soldiers who needed money to get home for Christmas.

“I'm 82 years old, and I know what it is like not to get someone home for Christmas,” the note said. Inside the envelope was $50 — a pair of $20 bills and a $10.

Fifty bucks from an 82-year-old woman to help get 200 National Guard soldiers, 105 of them based in Fort Mill, home from training in Wisconsin before they head to Afghanistan to fight in a war.

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The federal government can't, under military guidelines, pay for travel home before the soldiers are deployed overseas. Once gone to Afghanistan, it can foot the bill, but not before.

Since The Herald reported the story, and then other media reported it, donations poured in. The unit's Family Readiness Group in the last week received more than a hundred cards and letters and notes. Late last week, Lowe's Home Improvement heard from its Fort Mill store employees about the crisis and promptly paid $25,000. Coupled with the money already collected, the $35,000 needed for buses was paid for.

From as close as Rock Hill and Fort Mill, and as far away as California and Florida, came cards and letters. In each, money. As little as $10. One check for $20 from a woman who remembered being broke in Panama in 1970 when she couldn't get home for Christmas with her soldier husband. And $30 from a woman who wrote, “I don't have much, but I would like to help.”

Some contributed as much as $1,000. A grand from a business, and a grand from a family in New Jersey who had a relative in the unit. The man died last year after he got home from deployments to Iraq in 2003 and Afghanistan in 2007. The Fort Mill unit was deployed twice before this time, just in the past six years.

Another $1,000 check came from a man in Charlotte, who had been willed a bunch of money by a World War II veteran. He gave the money in the veteran's name.

“I pray that this money will help get these soldiers home,” the man wrote.

From Fort Mill, a man named Bill Muetze came to the armory. A Vietnam War veteran who served three tours. He carried with him $825 he raised from neighbors and at the Compact Power Equipment plant where he works in Fort Mill by passing the hat. Literally.

“I took the hat off my head, put in the $200 I had saved for Christmas and asked around,” Muetze said. “Some gave change, some gave dollars. The company gave $500.”

Muetze raised that money for all soldiers, but he has his reasons to pass the hat. Will Muetze, 21, and Travis Muetze, 20, are both in the unit. Both are private first class. Both joined knowing they would be deployed. Both joined knowing what their father told them about wars and people dying.

Still, they joined. And now they can get home to see their family before Afghanistan.

“My sons,” Bill Muetze said. “Both of them are being deployed. I want them home, but I want everybody's son home, too. The fact that so many people gave is just beautiful.”

A woman known to the soldiers who work at the Rock Hill armory — the headquarters for area armories including Fort Mill and where the mail comes for the Family Readiness Group — stormed into the Rock Hill armory Friday afternoon. She had tears in her eyes. She stormed in as fast as lady who is at least 90 years old can storm.

She said she had brothers, children and grandchildren in every war since World War II, and she was not going to stand by idly while politicians can come home for Christmas and soldiers cannot. From the tiniest of pocketbooks that are the M-16 rifles of little old ladies, she took out $10. She turned on her heels and left.

Nobody knows her name.

And yet, the money still comes. Monday in the darkness of evening, Family Readiness Group (FRG) President Wanda Bennett opened still more letters and cards filled with cash and checks. Her son, Alan, is in the unit.