Lance Cpl. Courtney ‘C.J.’ Garland received one of the Christmas cards sent to U.S. troops by residents of Vernon Woods Retirement Community in LaGrange.
Dear Ms. Huckabee,
My name is Lorraine Britton and I am the mother of a young man in the Marine Corps by the name of Courtney. I’m certain that you were sending the letter to him with a Christmas card not knowing to whom this letter was going. I am writing this letter to you so I can put a face to that name and thank you in the likely event that he never responded to that card.
Today I received the first footlocker containing many of his personal things. He is scheduled to return from this deployment within the next few weeks, and they must travel light on the return voyage. Among those belongings was a stack of cards and letters from people such as yourselves - people who just want to extend a warm greeting and say thank you to our troops overseas who are in harm’s way.
I can’t begin to thank you enough for this wonderful gesture. Courtney is not much of a letter-writer, and his phone calls home have been few and far between. That said, I feel compelled to make certain that you receive some feedback.
Courtney (we call him C.J.) is 20 years old and stationed at Camp Pendleton, Calif. He joined the Marine Corps a few months after graduating from high school and completed his training at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.
He drives the Humvees and big trucks in convoys in support of our infantry throughout southern Af-ghanistan. His job is very dangerous, and the base where he has been this entire seven months is remote and austere. These young men there are living in tents and sleeping on cots while on base, and when on convoys, they sleep wherever they can find a warm spot - usually in the truck cab or against a tire.
He expressed a couple of times in his phone calls home that he is tired, but the work is rewarding and he is actually enjoying staying busy, although the hours are long.
C.J. was raised in this small town here in northern California called Sutter Creek. He was active for many years in our church youth group, traveling to missions in Mexico. Prior to boot camp, C.J. traveled to a small village in Poland to coach basketball at a youth sports camp. He was being offered a scholarship to attend a private Christian University, where he was intending to obtain a degree in youth ministry. His decision to join the Marine Corps changed all of his plans, for a while at least. I don’t know what he has planned when he is done with his time in the Marines, but I trust in the Lord to guide him to a decision when the time is right.
C.J. called home in the early hours to talk to me after having a close call with an IED the day before. Although he claimed a truck was destroyed and nobody was hurt, I could tell in his voice that he was sufficiently rattled enough to want to hear my voice at 2:30 in the morning. I said that to say this: Our young men over there are all the sons, brothers, uncles, fathers and, yes, even grandfathers of people on this side of the world. We mothers of soldiers are in a “bubble” of stress sometimes, and we forget that so many people out there are concerned and praying for our boys too.
I have another son returning this week from Japan, where he has been stationed for a year. He also will be deploying in the early fall to Afghanistan, with C.J. following again in February. So, as you can see, I am a mother with much reason to be grateful and concerned, with an equal measure of both.
In the post-script of your letter, you mentioned that you are all “old” and that you pray a lot and talk to God. I am a praying woman who can appreciate the sincerity of that claim. Please keep doing what you are doing, knowing that it is noticed and appreciated by all of our fighting men. I pray for protection every day for these young men and will continue to do so, even after my sons are home for good. I pray for an end to these hostilities and I can only hope that all of our military moms out there are doing the same.
Lorraine Britton
Ione, Calif.
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