As the mother of a Soldier serving on his second deployment to Iraq, Karen Gordon of Utah spent many sleepless nights during the past 15 months worrying if her son, Sgt. Travis Gordon, of Company C, 3rd Battalion, 1st Aviation Regiment, 1st Combat Aviation Brigade, was all right.
“I would lie in bed at night thinking, ‘I’ve got to do something to show them what we can do (here for them),’” she said. “I literally would spend many sleepless nights worried about him. What is he doing? What is his mission? As a mother, I wanted to show our appreciation for what they do for our country.”
Karen knew once the Soldiers redeployed to Fort Riley, they would be living in brand new barracks, so she decided the best way to show her support was to have blankets made for each Soldier in her son’s company.
“What a better way for these guys to wrap up in these blankets and know people support them. Blankets bring security and I think that helps,” she said.
To get the ball rolling, Karen contacted Erica McMannes, the company’s Family Readiness Group leader. Erica’s husband, Matthew, also was deployed with the company and she was more than willing to help Karen see her project to fruition.
“I thought it was a great idea. It was very exciting. This is one more thing to keep you distracted from what’s going on,” Erica said. “There are so many people that want a way to show their support, so it feels good to give people that outlet and have something in the end for the Soldiers.”
When Karen found out there were just 40 Soldiers in her son’s company, she realized she could probably make 40 blankets in one day. So she asked Erica how many Soldiers were in the battalion. McMannes told her 400. So she decided to make 400 blankets instead.
“People kept saying to me, ‘How are you going to get 400 blankets?’ I kept saying, ‘Watch. People will do it. I know people support the military. I know that we can do this,’” Karen said. “When we first got a couple in, I thought, ‘Okay, maybe 400 is a big dream.’ But it wasn’t.”
People heard about the project from word-of-mouth and the blankets began trickling in, Karen said. Then she set up a Web site and the results were astonishing.
“We had neighbors, friends and strangers we didn’t even know who would hear about the project,” she said. “We were getting blankets, e-mails and pictures.
I literally would sit at my computer at night organizing the blankets that were coming in, the e-mails we were getting, pictures for the website and I would cry. I don’t remember how many nights I would sit at that computer and cry over the generosity of the American people. Most of these people do not even have a connection to these Soldiers. Yes, there is a lot of Family support throughout, but a lot of them were complete strangers who heard about the project and said, ‘We want to help.’ That’s what made me cry – to see the support that we’ve gotten.”
From the end of August, when the project started, to the Nov. 10 deadline, Karen received more than 400 blankets from 25 states around the nation.
She also received handmade cards to give to the redeploying Soldiers from children at Randolph Air Force Base near San Antonio, Texas, who all had at least one parent serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. Additionally, the children made 18 of the 400 blankets for the Soldiers.
“It doesn’t matter if they’re single or if they’re married, they need to know that we, as the majority of the American people, support what these guys do,” Karen said. “Whether we agree with the war or whatever, we support these guys and they need to be shown that appreciation. We can’t go back to the days of Vietnam.”
On Nov. 25, a steady stream of Soldiers arrived at a small building on Marshall Army Airfield to pick up their blankets. Each blanket was made with two yards of fleece in patriotic colors and rolled up with love.
Attached to each blanket was a card telling the Soldiers the name of the person who made each blanket and the city and state where the blanket was made.
“I hope every time they (the Soldiers) look at these blankets, they just realize what love came with them,” Karen said. “It just makes me very proud I have the Family that I do and the American people support it.”
To learn more about the “Wrapped in Support” Freedom Blankets, go to http://wrappedinsupport.blogspot.com.
By Dena O’Dell
Staff writer
Post/O’Dell
Erica McMannes, FRG leader and wife of Capt. Matthew McMannes, Co. C., 3rd AHB, 1st Avn. Regt., CAB, MacKenzie White, daughter of Karen Gordon, and Erica's son, Kilian, smile while handing out "Wrapped in Freedom" blankets to Soldiers with 3rd AHB, 1st Avn. Regt., CAB, Nov. 25 in a building on Marshall Army Airfield.
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