By Marty Toohey
Austin American-Statesman (Texas)
Copyright 2006 The Austin American-Statesman
All Rights Reserved
In the middle of a 120-degree Iraqi day, with 40 pounds of armor strapped to his body and most of life’s indulgences half a world away, Pfc. Floyd White Jr. finally realized just how sweet grape Kool-Aid can taste.
Part of what made it so sweet was that it came from Central Texas.
The Kool-Aid was sent by an Austin woman, a civilian, the type of person White said he sometimes feels disconnected from as a soldier.
“It is an awesome feeling,” he said in an e-mail, “when a soldier has support.”
For Jill Nokes, the package was a simple thing. She “adopted” White through one of the increasingly sophisticated support organizations for troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. The soldier and the Austin woman now e-mail each other about once a week.
Nokes said she started looking last winter for ways to connect with troops, but found only pass-along-your-donation programs. She said she wanted more direct communication, especially in light of the limited contact many people have with today’s all-volunteer military.
“Because we don’t have a draft,” she said, “it’s a small sector of society doing the heavy lifting.”
In December, Nokes heard about a donation drive started by Jane King, a Central Market employee. King told Nokes about an organization called Operation AC. Since mid-2003 it has evolved from an Army mother sending air conditioners to her son’s unit into an organization that connects donors with soldiers who want items from back home.
After a couple of false starts using Operation AC, Nokes found White, a 27-year-old medic from Houston with Fort Hood’s 4th Infantry Division.
He said he is one of 15 medics who care for 1,000 soldiers serving in the Baghdad area. He has been deployed since February, leaving behind his wife, Theresa, and son, Christian, who was born the week before his deployment.
Theresa White heard about Operation AC from her neighbor at Fort Hood. She said she signed her husband up because she heard some units needed basics, such as extra boots.
White did not need boots. He needed contact with home.
In their e-mail conversations, White says little about himself, instead focusing on his son and wife and what they’re going through. Nokes, 55, tells White about her husband and her grown daughters and anything else she thinks will take his mind off what’s going on around him.
Nokes said White isn’t in the habit of asking for things, but he drops hints, and she sends regular care packages containing beef jerky, granola bars, magazines, newspaper articles, and chips and salsa.
When not on missions, which come with the ever-present threat of attack by insurgents, White and his fellow soldiers are confined to heavily guarded bases. They work 12- to 16-hour shifts with no days off, White said in an e-mail.
The deployments take a toll, in Iraq and back home.
“I think most people really don’t understand what we go through,” said Theresa White, who added that as a new mom in a new town she’s lonely and sometimes a little overwhelmed. “It just rocks our world when people are supportive, because it’s a sacrifice.”
“To the soldiers,” she added, “even a granola bar is amazing.”
Theresa White and her best friend in Killeen, Spc. Stephanie Rodriguez, had not heard of Operation AC or similar programs before White signed up her husband. They know of no other soldiers who have been “adopted.”
On Friday, Nokes and Theresa White met face-to-face for the first time. They talked about Theresa White having to give up her job to care for Christian, and about how he’ll probably grow up big like his daddy, and about the fear she felt when her husband’s base was bombed.
Floyd White called three times during their meeting, listening while the two women talked. Nokes asked him to take orders from the 14 other medics for a “combo platter” she plans to ship them.
She and Theresa White are waiting for White to come home, which is expected late this year. In one of her recent care packages she included coupons for margaritas at her place.