A few years ago I applied to be a pen pal to a soldier in the States fighting in the war. At the time I was looking I didn't see any programs in Canada to "adopt" a soldier. Either way, it didn't matter. Before I could write, my soldier was sent home. I didn't apply for another one but thought a lot about how much a letter from home must mean to someone stationed overseas.
The other day I downloaded a song from Itunes by the Dixie Chicks called "Travelling Soldier." It's a beautiful ballad that tells the story of a waitress who meets a soldier the day he is shipping out to war. There's a line where he says to the waitress "I got no one to send a letter to, would you mind if I sent one back here to you?" After being shipped to Vietnam, the song goes on to say "He told her of his heart , it might be love, and all the things he was so scared of." This line gets to me and I seriously can't listen to the song without getting goosebumps, thinking about how much it would mean for someone who has no one to have someone to write to and get a letter back from. It made me think about how scary being in a strange land and fighting for your life and Country would be. No one can imagine the terror our troops face every day.
So, to make a long story short, I wrote a letter via email to the Canadian soldiers through the National Defence and Canadian Forces website, thanking them for what they are doing. Here's the website you can look at and write if you want:
http://www.forces.gc.ca/site/commun/message/message-add-ajout-eng.asp
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