Next month, Lt. Col. Barbara O'Reilly will be retiring after twenty one years of service to the United States Army and the Minnesota National Guard.

Guard leaders note that her greatest legacy will be the significant contributions she made in the last three years as Chief of Beyond the Yellow Ribbon, Deployment Cycle Support. Under her leadership and personal dedication, Minnesota became the national model for Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Training and Community Outreach. Her team has trained more than 30,000 Servicemembers and families throughout various deployments.

She has told her deployment story and inspired communities to support Servicemembers from Rochester to International Falls and dozens of Minnesota cities in between. She has shared the success of Minnesota's grassroots Yellow Ribbon Recognition Program with White House Staff and the National Guard Bureau. O'Reilly stood alongside retired Adjutant General Larry Shellito and former Governor Tim Pawlenty as 45 Yellow Ribbon entities in Minnesota have been proclaimed Yellow Ribbon - recognition that companies, communities, businesses and cities earn that shows their support of military families. Meanwhile she has helped dozens upon dozens more entities work on getting to their point of recognition.

O'Reilly joined the U.S. Army in 1989 as a signal intelligence interceptor and rose to the rank of sergeant.  In 1995, she completed Officer Candidates School.  She served in a variety of positions during her 21-year career with the U.S. Army and the Minnesota National Guard, including brigade adjutant, operations officer, executive officer and commander. O'Reilly was deployed to Afghanistan for Operation Enduring Freedom from 2007-2008 where she oversaw planning and execution of military operations for her battalion and was awarded the Bronze Star.

She will be starting her new position as Director of Women's Initiatives and Employment Initiatives with the MN Department of Veterans Affairs next month.

This month Beyond the Yellow Ribbon, Deployment Cycle Support also said farewell to Executive Officer, Eduardo Suarez. He will be deploying as the Battalion Operations Officer for the 1-194th Combined Arms Battalion out of Brainerd in May.

Suarez has been a leader of the Beyond the Yellow Ribbon program for three years, helping to make it the success it is today.  He strived to unite all resources for military families under one brand and message, and on one website.

He, like O'Reilly, served in the U.S. Army before earning his commission in 1996. He has 22 years of service and two deployments already to his credit, including Bosnia in 2003-2004 and Iraq 2005-2007.

Through his deployment, please keep his wife of 21 years, Jen, and their two children ages 11 and 8 in your thoughts.

Defending the Blue Line, a nonprofit organization that provides military children with free hockey equipment, is growing faster than Shane Hudella, founder and president, could have ever anticipated. After an engaging start to 2011 which saw Defending the Blue Line in various local media, including the Star Tribune and Fox Sports North, Hudella took a call from the National Broadcasting Company (NBC).

"They [NBC] reached out to us after the Star Tribune did their story in January," Hudella said. "This will help us to help kids coast to coast, and that's our ultimate goal."

The NBC story should air sometime this month and will highlight several of the families impacted by Defending the Blue Line. In addition to the flurry of media inquiries and stories, the National Hockey League's Jersey Auction ended on March 16, proving to be a major fund raising campaign for Hudella's program.

"The auction has been going since Feb. 22," Hudella said. "The most bidding is always in the last 24 hours."

Hudella anticipates the custom-made, camouflage jerseys, worn and signed by Wild players, to raise about $30,000 for Defending the Blue Line.

"It's amazing ... the dollar value we're seeing," Hudella said. "This is potentially a huge revenue for us."

The national attention and massive donations are good indicators of Defending the Blue Line's growth since its founding in 2009. Recently Hudella increased the bandwidth for the website and has considered hiring part-time help to handle the hundreds of e-mail messages he receives daily.

"If there were five more of me, all five would be busy every day," Hudella said.

The flurry of activity has helped Hudella just now realize his program's full potential, and made possible the ability to reach Servicemembers and military children across the country as Defending the Blue Line spills over the Minnesota border.

To learn more about Defending the Blue Line, visit www.DefendingTheBlueLine.com, or find them on Facebook at www.facebook.com/DefendingTheBlueLine.

In 2006, WCCO radio host Brad Walton asked a Servicemember, "What can we do to support the troops overseas during this holiday season?"

The response, "Chocolate chip cookies!"

Since then, Walton has worked with Martha Rossini-Olson of Sweet Martha's cookies to send thousands of treats overseas. The following is a thank you note from one beneficiary, who received some of the 10,000 cookies sent out in time for Valentine's Day last month:

I received the Sweet Martha's cookies today, it was four buckets in a box. I got rid of one of the boxes in two minutes by setting it out by our printers when the command and staff was over and everyone walked by it. Then I gave another bucket to the mechanics on night shift last night. I am going to bring one to Ben Connolly today, and then I have one left for me. The cookies are in very good shape and everyone loves them. I don't know what Tim's company is going to do if they get all 400 buckets at the same time. They will be easy to ship out to the outlying FOBs (Forward Operating Base), so that is good.

As for my next box, I could use one more pack of razors to get me through until I start growing it out for R&R. Six more should do it. I am also interested in trying  some macadamia nuts, and I like cashews too for healthy snacks. One more thing that would be good is some 3M command hooks for if I have to move the the east side. We are going into Cor-Max, containerized housing and we wont' be allowed to drill anything into them.

- Neal

It's "build-your-own-hamburger-night" every fourth Wednesday of the month in Hugo.

Beyond the Yellow Ribbon stopped by the Hugo American Legion last month to try out the hamburgers. They were good, plus we got to chat with military supporters from surrounding towns who'd come out for a night of fellowship. 

Hugo Yellow Ribbon leader and city council member, Chuck Haas and his team of Yellow Ribbon Volunteers donned Yellow Ribbon shirts as they waited on tables, grilled burgers, dropped fries and visited with customers. 

The next build your own hamburger night is March 23 from 5-7 p.m. at the Hugo American Legion Post #620 at 5383 140th St. N., in Hugo.  Cost is $6 for a hamburger and fries.  Event proceeds support Military Families.

http://www.btyr.org/hugo