October 1st 2010 - Thank you Mr. O' Meara

I’ve only been here a short time, but already the US is becoming foggy in my mind.  Things like restaurants, street lights, and indoor plumbing seem like a distant memory.  I know that for the past 9 years the war in Afghanistan seemed a million miles away, now that I’m here, home feels a million miles away.

It’s amazing the little things that make you feel a little closer to home.  It could be a phone call with your wife or perhaps an e-mail from a friend or a Facebook message from an acquaintance.  Yesterday I found another way to feel a little closer to home.

On the FOB there is a coffee shop.  This little coffee shop called Green Beans offers good coffee to us here on the FOB.  While their shop here isn’t as nice as what they had in Kuwait or Bagram, it still has good coffee, although they run out of stuff a lot.  It’s the only outside vendor on our FOB  and it’s became a gathering place in the evening for myself and some other members of my team.

We order our coffees and sit outside on a picnic table under the stars.  We talk about the day, our family, what we are doing when we get home, or just about anything under the sun.  The coffee is not as expensive as Starbucks, but it’s not free.  

We found out about a program that Green Beans offers, it’s called Cup of Joe for Joe.  Basically how it works is people sponsor a cup of coffee for Soldiers.  They can spend $2 or $60 (which buys coffee for 30 ‘Joes’).  They can put a little message with their cup of coffee.  Then a Soldier somewhere signs up for the program and randomly they’ll get an e-mail that they have been selected for a free cup of coffee.  We’ll get a little message with the coffee code and we can send a message back to the generous person back home. 

It’s really a great program.  I received my first cup of coffee the day after signing up.  It arrived with a note from a former Navy guy, Mr. O'Meara.

God Bless you guys and gals. From an old anchor-clanker, swab jockey. 

I sent him a thank you note and later in the evening enjoyed my cup of coffee with friends, at our regular table, but this time taking solace knowing that someone back home is thinking of us.

**Note, Green Beans Coffee has the Cup of Joe for Joe program which randomly gives a cup of coffee out but if you want to give a specific Soldier some coffee you can buy them a gift card online.