HAVERHILL — The Merrimack Valley home front deployed to the Northeast Veterans Outreach Center last night and by the time the mission was completed two hours later, volunteers had filled 354 Christmas stockings for troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
They also presented a $4,000 check to the Gold Star Mothers, who are raising money to construct a monument honoring the mothers who have lost sons and daughters in war. About 100 volunteers of all ages answered the call to support those who are risking their lives by serving in war zones.
"I'm thankful that I'm free and I'm thankful for everything they're doing for us," said Deborah Voisine, of 42 Summer St. Voisine joined the assembly line that filled the stockings and brought along her son, Seven Voisine, 20.
"I'm here to support the troops," he said. Voisine's cousin, Larry Murphy, served in Vietnam and flew wounded troops from the battlefields. Today he's an airline pilot, she said.
William Haslett Jr., president of the Veterans and Service Peoples Organization at Northern Essex Community College, said he was at the outreach center last night to represent his group. An Army veteran who served from 1982 to 1984 in Germany and came very close to being sent to Lebanon after the bombing of the Marine barracks, he said the stockings will bolster the morale of the men and women fighting terrorists.
"It shows the people back home care about them and love them," he said. "This takes away from the negative spin of the media."
Haslett said a typical reaction from a soldier, Marine, sailor or airman who receives a Christmas stocking might be something like, "Somebody does respect the fact that I'm here dodging bullets."
Nancy Sabin, faculty adviser to the Northern Essex veterans group, agreed with Haslett.
"This shows them that somebody cares," she said. Sabin, who has been helping veterans at Northern Essex since 1977, has a personal stake in America's current theaters of combat. Her nephew, Douglas Gallant, a 2002 Haverhill High School graduate, has already served in Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan. Recently promoted to sergeant, he's now assigned to the 101st Air Cavalry at Fort Campbell, Ky., and will probably be sent to Afghanistan for another tour. Gallant repairs helicopters.
Sabin said she tries to send her nephew a box of items once a month.
"I know what he likes," she said, adding that moral support is very important to Gallant and his comrades,
"They need this," Sabin said.
"They need more of this," Haslett said.
Colleen Mitchell, 13, of Pelham, N.H., whose dad, North Andover Veterans Services Director Edward Mitchell, organized last night's operation, said she was there to "support the troops."
"They are risking their lives for our country," she said. Colleen brought along two friends from Pelham, Kendra Luciano and Morgan Pinksten, both 12.
The Merrimack Valley Military Families Support Group raised the money that was given to the Gold Star Mothers. Accepting the donation were Chris Devlin, president of the Gold Star Mothers of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and Santina Raymond, vice president of that group.
Devlin's son, Marine Lance Cpl. Michael Devlin, was among those killed when the barracks in Beirut was attacked by a car bomber. Raymond's son, Sgt. Pierre Raymond, died in Germany from shrapnel wounds suffered in Iraq in 2005.
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