No, thank YOU! Troops send W.H. veterans their thanks

Every month for the past year, Mike Guerriero has purchased hundreds of toiletry items, socks, games, magazines and more, packed them in three or four boxes and sent them to Afghanistan.

He used donations collected from fellow members of American Legion Cathedral Post 1087 in West Hempstead, where Guerriero is 2nd vice commander, its Ladies Auxiliary unit and community residents to make the purchases. Everyone gave happily, according to the 82-year-old Korean War veteran, because it’s for a good cause: supporting American troops.

The post adopted the U.S. Army’s 10th Combat Aviation Brigade during its deployment to Afghanistan last year, and has since provided three to four care packages each month. Last month, the brigade’s grateful troops sent the post a letter and two tokens of their appreciation, a unit flag and a certificate.

“Our brigade has successfully redeployed from Afghanistan [and] many of its soldiers received significant moral support and care packages over the course of the one-year deployment,” U.S. Army Reserve Chaplain Lewis Messinger wrote in the letter, noting that the unit had lost four pilots and crew members. “… Thank you so very much for your support and remembering our soldiers during a challenging deployment last year. Your efforts and dedication were appreciated then, are warmly remembered now and will remain a lasting testimony to the devotion of those veterans at home who stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our troops in harm’s way.”

Post members were surprised to receive the items. “We had no idea we were going to get anything from anybody,” Guerriero said. “We were just doing it because that’s part of our job. … We were so honored that we got this. We’re looking for a place to display it.”

The Post’s 25 active members plan to continue donating to the cause, and Guerriero plans to keep preparing and sending the care packages. “We will support them as long as they’re in Afghanistan,” he said. “Until they come home, we’ll support them.”