A Soldier's mother will not rest until every troop returns home

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Russ Jackson
  • 62nd Airlift Wing Public Affairs
JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. --  The drive from Las Vegas, Nevada to Joint Base Lewis-McChord covers almost 1,300 miles and takes an average driver 20 hours to make the trip. For Suni Chabrow and a small group of volunteers, this trip was the easiest part of their journey.

Her son, Army Specialist Doug Green was killed in action, August 28, 2011, in Afghanistan by a rocket propelled grenade, thrusting her life into a quest to ensure that every service member serving in war zones are not forgotten about.

Chabrow is the founder of The Douglas J. Green Memorial Foundation. Her non-profit organization is dedicated to providing comfort and support to service members and their families by sending care packages during deployments.

If a care package is requested for a service member, they will send one, no matter the location. DJGMF has been primarily sending boxes into Afghanistan but now they are starting to receive requests from troops in Africa and Ukraine.

Chabrow assures they will not be left out.

"Doug loved receiving packages from home while he was deployed," said Chabrow. "I have made it my mission to provide these packages to our troops while they are deployed until the very last one comes home."

Chabrow lives in Las Vegas where she and her organization recently filled 1,000 care packages with crackers, beef jerkey, chips, cookies and toiletries. Each box cost the group about $10 to fill and $15 to send to Afghanistan, for an amount of roughly $25,000 to ship.

On this occasion, the group put each of those boxes into a U-Haul truck and drove it to the JBLM USO Northwest Shali center.

Andrew Oczkewicz, USO NW Shali center manager ensured them that each package would make it in to the hands of a deployed service member.

"Basically, when we have an Air Force C-17 flight going out there and if they have room for extra cargo, we can use that additional space," said Oczkewicz. "This week, I will work with the airlift squadron commanders to ensure these boxes make it to small forward operating bases in Afghanistan."

This was welcomed news for Chabrow and her organization.

"We send 5,000 boxes overseas each year and our numbers keep escalating," she said. "We give 100 percent of the proceeds back to the foundation so we pay for everything. This is the first time we have not had to pay for shipping."

Once the boxes were offloaded and turned over to the USO, Chabrow and her team were greeted by Col. Jeff Philippart, 62nd Airlift Wing vice commander who thanked them for their efforts. He then surprised them with a personal tour of a C-17 where they took photos and enjoyed the opportunity to sit in the cockpit.

While this trip can be considered a major victory for Chabrow and DJGMF, her war to send the comforts of home to service members deployed thousands of miles away continues on.

For more information about the foundation, visit http://www.douglasjgreenmemorialfoundation.org/ or Douglas J Green Memorial Foundation on Facebook.