Message from Twist

Twist wanted to tell everyone about some folks that helped him out, so….

As you all may know my spelling and grammar are not the best (I’m looking at you MCPO “smile”) so please forgive any mistakes.

Last month I had a pretty rough week. We have been taking care of my Mother, who has severe Dementia, for about three years now. She is finally to the point where she needs more care than we can provide so we decided to put her in a home. We had just started the process and the next day we got a phone call. My Father-In-Law, who is a Vietnam Veteran, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and throat Cancer and give three to six months to live. So we started making plans to get up to Alaska and help out up there and let the kids see their Grandfather while he is still with us and can remember us. Then about a week later I got a text from my wife while I was at work that said call home now. When she answered the phone I could barely understand her she was crying so hard. She was finally able to choke out that our two year old Granddaughter had a fatal accident. My LTC sat me down until I was safe to drive and then sent me home. My unit was great. Within 30 minutes of getting the Red Cross message I was on emergency leave. The reason I’m telling you this is not for sympathy, it is to give the back story about what happened next.

There is a Veterans charity called Wish For Our Heroes here in Indiana. They usually grant small wishes for Service Members and Veterans like giving them tickets to sporting events or help with small repairs on vehicles. I never contacted them, but they found out what was going on and then my phone started ringing and them saying they usually don’t do this kind of thing, but will see what they could do. Later that afternoon I got another call from them asking If I would be home in an hour and I said sure. An hour later one of them pulled into my driveway and gave us a gift card with $500 on it so that we would have spending money on it. I thought that was the end of it. A couple of days later I got another call from them while I was up in Alaska saying that they are going to help pay for my Granddaughters funeral. It wasn’t a ton of money, but I was touched. The next day I got another call from them asking if I was going to be in Indiana around Christmas time to which I replied sure. I asked why and they would only tell me that they wanted to do something for my family. I was deeply touched since all that they did is out of their usual scope. If you all want give them some loves.

Twist

They’ee also on Facebook.

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I met Wish for Heroes about 3 weeks ago, and they are awesome. Just fell in love with the group. They set up obstacle courses at events for little kids, and when they finish the kids get their pictures taken with flak vest and helmet on. The kids were SO wound up. I helped them a little that day, and would have helped more, but I was in a lot of pain.

Anyway, I liked them enough that when my wife asked if I would be Santa Claus for pictures with all of the proceeds from the door going to that organization, I reluctantly agreed. I look like a complete lunatic (see below if you want) but they are such a great cause I even gave up my beard for them. I am glad they helped Twist, and feel better now about losing my viking look. Even though I can’t go to work looking like this, so may call in dead tomorrow.

Category: Who knows