Marine Parents Logo  
MarineParents.com Newsletter
In This Issue
Great Gear for Marines and Families
Deployment
Homecoming
November is National Family Caregiver Month
Ike Skelton, 1931-2013
Quick Reads
Get to Know the Team
Spread the Word!

Do you know a Federal employee?
Learning Center:
Operational Security

When communicating online, your Marine's privacy is as important as Operational Security. Please respect YOUR Marine's privacy!

Operational Security... Now?

 

Click to learn more!

Fund a Day of Freedom at the Farm













To learn more, or to donate, please click here...
EGA Shop  

Gear for Marines and Family Members at the EGA Shop:


  

Help Your Marine to the Next Promotion with Books from the Commandant's Reading List!









 
Learning Center:
About Deployment

 


Communications From your Marine, with the USMC, and with other families

 

Bills, taxes, legal issues, injuries, notification from the Marine Corps

 

 

Learning Center:
About Homecoming
 
 
 
 
 
Newsletter Signup 

 

 

Or just text MARINEPARENTS  to 22828 to sign up!   

 

Purple Heart Hero Support™

 

 

Operation Prayers & Letters™

 

 

Care Package Project™    

 

   

Team Marine Parents™

Join Us Online




View our profile on LinkedInLike us on FacebookView our videos on YouTubeFollow us on Twitter


November 14, 2013
Greetings!

If this is the first edition of the Marine Parents newsletter you have received, WELCOME! If you are a returning reader we are glad you have joined us and are thankful for your support. 

November is National Family Caregiver Month. Read more about it in our first article.

For the third year in a row, Hardees franchises in Cleveland, Tennessee have held a fundraising campaign on behalf of MarineParents. Read all about it in our second piece.

Long time House Representative and MarineParents.com supporter Ike Skelton passed away just over two weeks ago. Our third article honors his memory.

Our second-to-last piece is a series of four "Quick Read" stories, and provides a short look at women in the USMC infantry, the best colleges for veterans, the 31st anniversary of the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and the recent decrease in military suicides.

Finally, we take a look at this issue's Team Marine Parents Featured Participants.  In honor of their dedication and willingness to go above and beyond, we'd like to thank an elite group of fundraisers, TMP's "Over 1K Club!"


God bless and Semper Fi!

 

Web Signature

 

 

 

Tracy Della Vecchia

Founder and Executive Director
MarineParents.com, Inc.
November is National Family Caregiver Month
Recognizing Those Who Dedicate Their Lives to Others

November is National Family Caregiver Month, per Presidential proclamation. To mark the occasion, President Obama released the following statement on Thursday, October 31:

Across our country, more than 60 million Americans take up the selfless and unheralded work of delivering care to seniors or people with disabilities or illnesses. The role they play in our healthcare system is one we must recognize and support. During National Family Caregivers Month, we thank these tireless heroes for the long, challenging work they perform behind closed doors and without fanfare every day, and we recommit to ensuring the well-being of their loved ones and of the caregivers themselves. 

To read President Obama's National Family Caregiver Month proclamation in its entirety, please click here... 

Hardees "Stars for Troops"
$5,000 Raised For MarineParents Outreach Programs

 
Back row, from left: Julia Scoggins, David Self, Ed Stuteville. Front row, from left: Tammy Bivens, Barbara Gemmell, Brenda Eckard.  
For the third consecutive year, J&S Restaurants, the Cleveland, Tennessee-based franchise for Hardee's restaurants in the surrounding region, ran its annual "Stars For Heroes" campaign, in which customers at area Hardees restaurants had the option to purchase a "star" with their meal for an extra $1. The stars were then displayed on the restaurants' walls to show support for military men and women. 

 

Click here to read more... 

Honoring Ike Skelton
Long Time Representative, Military Supporter Passes Away at 81 

Ike Skelton, the former House Representative who served western and central Missouri for 34 years, died just over two weeks ago, on October 28, at a hospital in Arlington, Virginia. Skelton, 81, had been admitted to the hospital a week prior for complications due to pneumonia.

During his more than three decades in office, Skelton built a reputation as a military expert and supporter. The day after Skelton's death, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel released the following statement:

The Department of Defense lost a lifelong friend yesterday with the passing of former Rep. Ike Skelton. His leadership of the House Armed Services Committee, and his passion for our men and women in uniform, helped make the military he loved stronger. He will always be remembered for his commitment to bi-partisanship, his work to get our troops what they needed to succeed in battle, and his belief in the importance of professional military education. He will be missed by so many of us. Our service members, their families, and the people of Missouri have lost a staunch advocate. My thoughts and prayers are with his wife Patty and the entire Skelton family.

In addition, Rep. Skelton was a valued supporter of MarineParents, and was responsible for getting our organization in the Congressional Record in March of 2010, for which we are eternally grateful. 

To read more about the death of Rep. Skelton, please click here...

To view MarineParents in the Congressional Record, please click here*...

(* MarineParents and founder Tracy Della Vecchia are mentioned at the beginning of the 9th paragraph)
Quick Reads
Women in Infantry, Best Colleges for Veterans, Vietnam Veterans Memorial Anniversary, Military Suicide Rate Down   
  • A female student at the Infantry Training Battalion buddy carries another female student during the movement-under-fire portion of the Combat Fitness Test at Marine Corps Base Camp Geiger, N.C., Sept. 26, 2013.    (photo by Cpl. Chelsea Flowers Anderson) 
    In what would be a landmark moment in Marine Corps history, the commander of School of Infantry-East has stated his belief that multiple female Marines will graduate from Infantry Training Battalion in November. Of the 15 female Marines who began infantry training with Delta Company at Camp Geiger, N.C. in September, eight dropped out before what is generally considered the most challenging aspect of infantry training--a 12 1/2 mile hike across Camp Geiger under 90 lbs of gear. Of the seven female Marines who began the hike on October 28, four completed it, making their graduation on November 21 a very strong likelihood.
    Click here to read more...
          
  • U.S. News and World Report, the American news magazine famous for it's annual college and university rankings, released its inaugural list of the "Best Colleges for Veterans" Monday to coincide with Veteran's Day. The schools on the list were ranked based on a variety of criteria, including graduation rate, faculty resources, reputation, and other markers of academic quality. Additionally, the schools were required to be certified for the GI Bill and to participate in the Yellow Ribbon Program, as well as being required to be members of the Servicemembers Opportunity Colleges (SOC) Consortium.  Click here to read more...     

  • People visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.   (photo credit: U.S. Senate Photography Studio) 
    November 13, marks the 31st anniversary of the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall in Washington D.C. The dedication, along with the parade that preceded it, were parts of a week-long National Support to Vietnam Veterans. The memorial contains the names of more than 58,000 Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice in Southeast Asia, including more than 13,000 Marines.  Click here to learn more...       
  • Defense officials have recently announced that military suicides are down 22% this year compared to 2012. In what the Department of Defense has referred to as an "epidemic", more service members lost their lives to suicide than to the war in Afghanistan last year, prompting officials to launch a variety of suicide detection and prevention programs to combat the trend. However, despite the decrease in military suicides this year, military officials were reluctant to give the programs too much credit, as they still do not fully understand what causes troops to take their lives to begin with. Click here to read more...    
Get to Know the Team
TMP's "Over 1K Club"

Front of bottle
As a distance run, 1K isn't all that impressive (1 kilometer = roughly .62 miles), especially not by a group of people who have spent months getting in shape and training for last month's Marine Corps Marathon. However, as an amount of money raised during the 2013 Team Marine Parents season by one person or team, $1,000 is quite an impressive feat, and is well above the $300 goal that TMP members pledge to raise.

This year, TMP's "Over 1K Club" was entered a remarkable nine times! As a token of our appreciation, we have provided each member of the club with their own exclusive gift, a "Thank You" water bottle from our EGA Shop.  The members of this year's TMP "Over 1K Club" are:
Back of bottle

We would like to extend one more big "Thank You" to the members of the club, as well as to everyone out there who took the time to compete for, raise funds for, donate funds to, and support Team Marine Parents. This was our most successful year by far, and it's all thanks to you! We hope to keep the momentum going and can't wait to see what 2014 has in store for the the team!  


 

We hope this week's edition of our email newsletter has been useful for you and your family. If there are topics you would like us to address, or if you have other suggestions for the newsletter, please contact us.  

 


Banner Photo--
DJIBOUTI, AFRICA (Oct.30, 2013) - A Marine Sniper from 1st Battalion 4th Marines, 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit takes aim on a target hundreds of meters out during a month long sustainment training exercise Oct. 30, 2013. The 13th MEU is deployed with the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group as a theater reserve and crisis response force throughout the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility. (USMC photo by SSgt. Matt. Orr/Released)

 

MarineParents.com, Inc., is a 501(c)(3) public charity. MarineParents.com, Inc., was founded in January 2003 in response to parents' needs to find information and to have "a place to connect and share"� with one another during their Marine's career. Our free online services and connections have expanded to support and educate Marine moms and dads, spouses, families and friends. We've helped 400,000 Marine and recruit families during boot camp, training, active duty and deployments. We've shipped more than 34,000 care packages overseas to our Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan, sent 60,000 prayers and letters to injured Marines and served thousands of meals to wounded heroes and their families on the East and West coasts. You've found "a place to connect and share."�