Heroes Waiting
for Adoption
News Archives

Brothers at War is turning it back around with the release of the documentary on DVD. Soldiers' Angels will be able to receive 10% off the price of the DVD online with use of the coupon code ANGELS, with an additional 10% of the cost being donated directly to Soldiers' Angels.

As announced here, Soldiers' Angels is a proud supporter of Specialist Troy Yokum's Hike for Our Heroes as he marches 7,000 miles around the country for his fellow soldiers and their families, and encourages Angels to join him in whatever way they can.

When former U.S. Navy diver Paul Zipes took up a challenge from his wife, he didn’t know it would change his life. Today Paul is a certified yoga teacher and leads Yoga for Vets to help other veterans discover the benefits of yoga, particularly combat veterans and wounded troops.

Twenty-one-year-old Lance Corporal Justin Swanson was a leader who stood up for others long before he gave his life in Afghanistan last November. Today Soldiers' Angels is proud to stand with those who honor him and are inspired by his example.

The Birdsafe Store provides supplies and toys to help bird lovers create a safe and happy place for their pets, and now they’re spreading their wings for Soldiers’ Angels!

At the Ascension Church Hall in Bowie, MD on Saturday October 3, 2009, 200 volunteers in one day made 333 fleece blankets for troops medevaced to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.

Patti Patton-Bader, founder of Soldiers’ Angels, has been declared a “Woman of Distinction” in her region by the Girl Scouts of Central Texas (GSCT).
Soldiers' Angels Operation Overseas Mardi Gras was such a huge success this year that the project has been expanded! Led by the Louisiana Angels, the goal of sending 1,500 care packages of Mardi Gras supplies and teats to deployed service members from Louisiana has been met, and more.

Marie, who became an Angel just last September and hails from England, will be running in the London Marathon on April 25 in honor of two organizations: the United Kingdom charity Children with Leukemia is sponsoring her, and she will also be running in honor of Soldiers’ Angels.

A blogger, friend of Soldiers' Angels and spouse of an oft-deployed Airman,"Airforcewife" is a great supporter of her husband and now is working to extend that support beyond her family! She has joined her local gym’s “Feather Weight Challenge” and vows to donate any winnings to help the troops!

The word went out last week on the Soldiers' Angels Bat Phone, a special email list for those who want to offer extra help in situations of great or urgent need. This was the result, as published on Operation TBI Freedom:

For about the next 24 hours, you can donate $1 to Soldiers' Angels without spending a cent!

With things calmer in Iraq these days, the military medical personnel there don't see quite as many wounded soldiers as they used to. But they still see a lot of injuries from bombs targeting local civilians. As Master Sergeant Davis says below, every bit of encouragement helps as America's heroes go about their work amid such suffering.

In the middle of the indescribable pain of losing a child to suicide, a father not only reached out to thank Soldiers' Angels, but stood up to make something positive out of the suffering of his son and family...
The International Chili Society has worked with Soldiers' Angels to sponsor chili events for deployed troops before, including a cookoff in conjunction with Super Bowl Celebrations next month. Now they're planning for more of these great events...
Beginning April 17, 2010, Troy will be hiking across America, visiting 25 states and 25 major cities to raise awareness of and financial support for the needs of veterans and military families.

Soldiers’ Angel Regina Urbanski recently rang in the New Year with “her hero” and his family. But this hero wasn’t a soldier she “adopted” as so many Angels do...

The first team to travel to Landstuhl as part of Cooking with the Wounded is making preparations for their trip, and Soldiers' Angels is asking for your help.

Within hours of the Fort Hood shooting in early November, Soldiers’ Angels vowed to ensure that the families of the wounded and fallen knew that they were not alone, especially during the upcoming holiday season. Over the Christmas holiday, Soldiers' Angels made good on that vow, sending a special gift to each family.
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With the opening of its own veteran-run warehouse in San Antonio, Soldiers' Angels bids official adieu to Minimus.biz, its former West Coast partner and warehouse in Pasadena, CA.

Addi's local paper recently took note of her great Angel work, writing about her enthusiastic and creative support, including how she "splatted" her face into her birthday cake for the purpose of making her adopted hero laugh.

Today Capt. Murphy is deployed to Kosovo. With the help of Soldiers' Angels, Hillside Elementary School in Ashburn, VA adopted his unit. The students led a fundraiser last fall to support his soldiers during the winter holidays.
Those hard-working Louisiana Angels are at it again—with Operation Overseas Mardi Gras 2010! This will be the third year in a row that they will lead Angels across the nation to bring Mardi Gras cheer to deployed soldiers from Louisiana.


Soldiers' Angels around the world receive thousands of notes of appreciation for their individual and group activities in support of the troops. All of the notes are appreciated, and some are so special they just have to be shared.
2,000... That's a lot. Could be a lot of dollars... a lot of treats... a lot of good things...
Actually, 2,000 is a lot of heroes... a lot of heroes waiting. With 2,068 currently on the adoptions list, that means many of them are waiting nearly a month for their Angel to come along with personal attention and support.
Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and friend of Soldiers' Angels, has written a lovely Holiday greeting to America's military men and women. Soldiers' Angels wholeheartedly agrees with the sentiments he expresses and shares his brief note here, in tribute to all the men and women who are spending the Holidays protecting America by their service:

The Soldier's Angels monthly Newsletter, Calling All Angels, has returned after a brief hiatus, complete with brand new Editor! Check it out! An Angel since 2005, Amy Hammonds was asked to take over the newsletter earlier this month.

Soldiers' Angels is planning an official grand opening of the Soldiers' Angels Salute to Heroes & Angels museum and new shipping center headquarters, and you're invited!
Support A Veteran's Employment (S.A.V.E.) is a project committed to making sure Soldiers' Angels will not only be able to continue to employ veterans today, but also increase the number of positions available for additional veteran employees to meet the growing demands of the warehouse. 
Civilians who support the troops in both word and deed may not know that besides the beloved gifts and good wishes they send, something else often goes along for the ride and is much-appreciated by recipients. From today's mail:
Author Gary Williams, Soldiers’ Angels and the parents of Lt. Murphy are teaming up in Lt. Murphy’s hometown for a book signing and tribute to the fallen hero. His Medal of Honor and memorabilia from Washington DC events will also be on display.
Kim Simac, author of the acclaimed American Soldier Proud and Free has created a special program to make the book more widely-available to the families of the heroic American men and women featured in it.

Soldiers’ Angels proudly announces the opening if its first Angel-operated warehouse, staffed by four recent veterans and Angel volunteers. The warehouse consolidates and streamlines SA’s extensive packing, shipping and screen-printing activities in support of the troops, reducing the organization’s overhead expenses and providing an employment opportunity for veterans.
The ladies at One Meaning Couture have totaled up their November sales and donated 8.13%, as promised when Soldiers’ Angels was selected as Charity of the Month (plus a little extra): $250. “We hope this brings a little joy to a deserving family or soldier far away,” they wrote.

Just in time for the Holiday Season, a number of talented musicians are putting their gifts to work, creating beautiful songs that raise morale and support the troops with donations…
In the wake of the shooting at Ft. Hood last month, Soldiers’ Angels and other organizations stepped up to show their love and support for all who suffered on that horrifying day. The first step taken by SA was to shower the survivors with cards of encouragement and sympathy, and last week Soldiers’ Angels heard from one of the recipients of those cards:
The money was raised as part of the Lions Club’s Oktoberfest celebration (October 3-4) in which they raised money with a celebration of German music, beer and food. The Oktoberfest celebration is the Club’s major annual fundraiser, and this year’s event brought in record crowds.

Once again, employees of Soldiers’ Angels corporate sponsor KBR have stepped up to support the troops. This time, they sent 1,116 Holiday care packages to Afghanistan! With the assistance of Mariam Weaver, a teacher at Turner Elementary in Pasadena, Texas, KBR packed and shipped 188 boxes of Holiday Cheer to the deployed battalion they’ve been supporting company-wide.

Jolly Holiday Letters offers people the opportunity to purchase a “letter from Santa” that will be sent to a family member, child or friend, and one dollar from each letter will be donated to Ladies of Liberty.
As the one-month anniversary of the Fort Hood shootings approaches, Rudy’s “Country Store” and Bar-B-Q has announced that it will donate a portion of its revenues from online and participating store locations on December 5th (the one-month anniversary of the Fort Hood tragedy), to Soldiers’ Angels, which plans to give each of the 46 families affected by the shootings gift packages.
When a member of the 300-year-old First Congregational Church in Connecticut was deployed to Afghanistan in 2006, her boyfriend stood up in church and asked for donations of coffee—a chaplain she had met was buying coffee for his soldiers out of his own pocket. Sitting in a nearby pew, Thomas Jastermsky felt the call to help. “It’s something you can do, Tom, you’re a coffee drinker. This is you,” he thought.

While the duty of a medical officer in the United States military is first and foremost to the troops to which he or she is attached, most military medical personnel are humanitarians at the core, eager and willing to render compassionate care to all who require it. Case in point: Lieutenant Colonel Chris Coppola, an Air Force pediatric surgeon.

Soldiers' Angels received this heartwarming note from a wounded soldier on a very appropriate day--Thanksgiving Eve...

Last Sunday, actress Kirstie Alley gave her Twitter friends and fans an opportunity to raise money for their favorite charities... just by answering a question! And Soldiers' Angels was a big winner!

Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, issued a lovely Thanksgiving Day message that Soldiers' Angels would like to share as an expression of our thoughts on this holiday as well...
With the assistance of local Angels Kasia, Karen H, Karen W, and Kaitlyn, Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce recently raised almost $10,000 for Soldiers’ Angels through the 2009 Greater Washington Government Contractors Awards Gala.

Songwriter and music teacher Denise Romas couldn’t have imagined what would happen when Patti and Shelle unknowingly chose her song as the soundtrack for the 2009 Day of the Deployed video. It shouldn’t have surprised her though, considering the magical history of A Healing Angel.

Civilian Brandon Kent and his seven-year-old daughter Gabrielle are on a mission—to provide the highest quality Tactical eyewear for the troops! It’s been a long and difficult road, but they are about to send their first group of protective glasses to troops in Afghanistan. And they could use your help!
Soldiers' Angels Germany has its own Facebook page!
Led by MaryAnn Phillips, this tremendous and very busy group of Angels tends to wounded or ill soldiers and their families as patients are in transit to stateside hospitals, and supports personnel who stay at Landstuhl throughout their recoveries.

Jeff Booher, a retired sailor now working for a world-class construction company, writes about what his fellow employees are doing...
Patsy Swendson has done it again with a new book focused on our deployed heroes--Pockets of Peace: Words of Encouragement in Challenging Times. Designed especially for deployed troops, it's another great book chock-full of encouraging words, food for thought, and powerful pictures. Small enough to fit in an ACU (camouflage uniform) pocket, Pockets of Peace is a perfect winter holiday gift for a deployed service member.


