MILITARY DEPLOYMENTS: Macomb County kids are heroes, too

Project aims to ease the pain of family separation

February 10, 2006

BY JOHN MASSON

DETROIT FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

The term “suddenly military” doesn’t just apply to reservists and National Guard members called to active duty.

It also applies to their kids.

And because part-time soldiers aren’t generally attached to a full-time military community, neither are their families. So finding the ear of someone who understands what it’s like when Mom or Dad gets deployed may not be as easy for Guard and Army Reserve kids as simply walking over to the post exchange.

That’s why a couple of dozen 4-H club members gathered Wednesday at the VerKuilen building in Clinton Township to assemble 200 Hero Packs — backpacks filled with things to help kids stay in touch with their deployed parents and to remind those kids that they’re brave, too.

The packs, part of an Army-funded grant program called Operation: Military Kids, previews the program’s statewide kickoff Thursday in Lansing.

Other supporters of the program include the American Legion and the Boys and Girls Clubs.

“We’re here to say thanks to the kids who become heroes,” said Tina Fleming, state military liaison for 4-H.

Kids and grown-ups arranged themselves around a U-shaped table, packing each backpack with writing paper, pencils, journals, rubber bracelets, military-style dog tags, rulers and stuffed animals.

Also inside each was a handwritten note from the kids who put the black-and-gray backpacks together.

“However much you think you are lost, you are not,” wrote Paul Kroll, 12, of Shelby Township. “Your parent will always be with you.”

Paul, a student at Crissman Elementary School, doesn’t know anyone whose father or mother has been deployed. But he said helping assemble backpacks was the least he could do.

“Kids need our help, and we should help make sure they don’t get lonely,” he said.

With the regular deployment of National Guard and Reserve troops to help fight wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, nearly 4,000 Michigan kids have been affected by recent deployments, Fleming said.

Which only made putting the packs together feel better for Haley Waterstraat, 12, of Armada.

“I think it’s really cool, helping out all the kids whose parents are gone, to help get their minds off it,” said Haley, a seventh-grader at Armada Middle School.

Contact JOHN MASSON at 586-469-4904 or masson@freepress.com .