The new year has arrived. The corks have been popped, the bottles drained and resolutions declared. Students who traveled home for the holidays to celebrate with family and friends have now found themselves back in Raleigh, square in the middle of the first full week of classes.
But, for many soldiers serving overseas, there was no holiday break. No plane whisked them stateside for a two-week furlough with parents, siblings, spouses and children. When Christmas morning came, they instead rose and faced another day of dust and dangers on the roads of Iraq or among the mountains of Afghanistan — thousands of miles from the familiar streets and faces of home.
“You make the best of it,” said Glenn Draughon, a senior in political science who served in Iraq in 2004, and whose younger brother, Clint Draughon, was deployed there in March. “The holidays were probably harder for some than they were for others, especially for the guys who had wives and kids back home.”
While it’s possible nothing can completely make up for a Christmas spent thousands of miles from family, one group’s efforts aim to remind soldiers that they are supported and remembered — not only during the holidays, but also throughout the year.
In 2006, then-sophomore Jennifer MacNab joined fellow political science major and 2006 graduate James Boicourt in forming the N.C. State chapter of Carolina Troop Supporters, a nonpartisan student organization that MacNab said raises funds and distributes care packages to soldiers both at home and abroad.
Founded in 2004 by students from UNC-Chapel Hill, Carolina Troop Supporters now boasts chapters at campuses all over the state.
Members spend several weekends over the course of the school year standing outside of stores like Wal-Mart and Target distributing a list that includes items like toothpaste, lip balm, shampoo, magazines, newspapers and nonperishable candy. MacNab, now a senior, said shoppers are then encouraged to purchase items from the list and drop them off as they leave the store.
“The response from the community has been extremely positive,” said MacNab, who now serves as president of the NCSU chapter. “People have come out with entire shopping carts filled with things for us, and they’ll come and talk to us and tell us about how they have a son or a daughter or a grandchild who is overseas. People have moved me to tears with their stories. To be able to connect with people on that kind of a level is really special.”
Draughon, who serves as care package coordinator for the NCSU chapter, said 10 to 15 members comprise the local group.
“We do what we can,” he said. “We’re a relatively small group.”
But the group’s size isn’t reflected in its service. Last year, members sent 100 care packages overseas, and, according to Draughon, the response from soldiers has been positive.
“They were surprised that college students were thinking about them, and they were really grateful for it,” Draughon said. “I guess they kinda figured we’re probably in our own little world and busy with school.”
According to MacNab, that assumption isn’t always far from the truth. She said she believes students often become so immersed in homework and social activities that they end up neglecting their civic responsibilities.
“For instance, if you look at voter turnout in our age group, there are so few students that vote,” MacNab said. “I think that that’s actually one of the main goals of Carolina Troop Supporters – to increase student participation.”
But students can’t participate in an effort they know nothing about. Consequently, the group devotes time and energy toward advertising its activities by distributing fliers, hanging signs, sending e-mails and talking directly with students in the Brickyard and at orientation.
New group member Lisa Rightmyer, a freshman in biochemistry, said finding the motivation to get involved was never difficult. For her, the welfare and comfort of the troops is a personal issue. “I actually met him in the most romantic place imaginable – at the McDonalds in Wal-Mart,” said Rightmyer of her first encounter with her boyfriend, Wayne Watters, who is serving in Iraq.
The two met back in March through Frank Roberts, a mutual friend now stationed with Watters in a suburb east of Baghdad.
“It can be hard, but you have to get through it,” Rightmyer said. “You just have to keep remembering that they’ll be back eventually.”
During freshman orientation, Rightmyer noticed the booth for Carolina Troop Supporters and decided to find out more.
“I went back and checked out the Facebook group online and thought, ‘Hey, this is pretty cool,'” Rightmyer said.
Although students can initially gravitate toward a group like Carolina Troop Supporters for a variety of reasons, MacNab said she believes the members’ enthusiasm convinces new members to stay once they join.
“It’s a tough thing to ask people to stand outside on a Saturday morning after they’ve been out having fun on a Friday night, but this group is so positive that once people become involved, they typically won’t leave,” she said.
MacNab also said political neutrality is a key to the group’s appeal with students and contributors.
“That was the most important aspect of creating this organization,” MacNab said. “I just wanted to create a group that, no matter what your political views were, you could come and support your friends and family and peers who are overseas.”
Now entering her final semester, MacNab said that actually succeeding in establishing such a group stands as one of the proudest accomplishments of her college career.
“It’s been one of the best things, if not the best thing, that I’ve done in my years at N.C. State,” MacNab said.