USO Donates 5,000 Phone Cards
To Help Brigade Stay in Touch With Families

Mitchell Bush (left), president of the USO’s Savannah chapter, tells Soldiers of Georgia’s 48th BCT that he hopes the 5,000 pre-paid phone cards he’s given their senior NCO, Command Sgt. Maj. James Nelson, will help bring them closer to their families and friends. (Roy Henry) (Georgia National Guard photo by Sgt. Roy Henry)

Ask a group of Soldier’s what’s important to them, especially when they’re deployed and they’ll give a variety of answers. The most important to many, it seems, is their ability to stay in touch with family and friends.

For troops of the Georgia Army National Guard’s 48th Brigade Combat Team, that ability to stay in touch with families and friends got a boost when the brigade’s top enlisted Soldier received around 5,000 pre-paid telephone cards from the USO’s Savannah chapter Jan. 26 at the Fort Stewart Education Center on General Stewart Way.

Command Sgt. Maj. James Nelson accepted the cards on behalf of the troops, some of who joined him for the presentation by Savannah Chapter president Mitchell Bush.

The USO, Bush said, knows that, whether the troops are here or overseas, they’re getting food, water and everything else they need. What the organization doesn’t know, he added, is whether they’re getting the opportunity to stay in touch with the ones they love.

“The 48th isn’t ready to leave, just yet. So, in the mean time,” Bush said as he held one of the 200-minute phone cards for everyone to see, “but with these, we’re going to make sure its Soldiers are able to call the folks at home.”

He added that if the brigade found that those 5,000 cards were not enough, there was no need to worry. Another 10,000 Bush explained had been ordered.

Nelson, a smile on his face, accepted the small, long cardboard box containing the plastic credit-card size gifts from Bush, assuring him that the cards would be distributed among the brigade elements for dispersion to every Soldier.

“This,” Nelson said as he cradled the box in his arms, “is just another example of how groups like the USO take care of our men and women in uniform. We [the 48th Brigade] greatly appreciate all the organization does for us.”

After the presentation of the phone cards, the 48th Soldiers and members of 3rd Infantry Division, who also attended the event, received bags of personal hygiene items and other goodies from USO volunteers. The troops also took time to sample baked goods and other refreshments made available by the volunteers.

Sergeant Brian Franklin, an ammunition handler for the 48th’s Service Battery, 1st Battalion, 118th Field Artillery, said he has always appreciated the USO.

“They give so much to us in the military, and the donation of the phone cards is just another example of that,” Franklin said. “And the baked goods aren’t bad either.”

Sergeant Angela Gowen, a medic and the NCOIC for the Advance Trauma Life Support element of the brigade’s Company C, 148th Forward Support Battalion, agreed.

Items like the “goodie bags” are well received by the troops, she said. Everything the USO does helps make her and other Soldiers not miss home so much.

“Knowing that there are people out there who care and are proud of us for who we are and what we do,” she said, while checking out the items she received in her own bag, “makes me that much prouder of who I am.

It also takes away a bit of that loneliness one feels when they are away from the ones they love,” she added.

More than 4,000 members of the 48th Brigade Combat Team are here training up for a yearlong deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. While many of the Soldiers are from Georgia, others from Illinois, Maryland and Missouri have joined the brigade for its upcoming mission.

The 48th will spend the next two months here at Fort Stewart, then move on in the spring to the Army’s National Training Center (NTC)  at Fort Irwin, Calif., for additional training. No time line has been announced for the brigade’s eventual deployment to Iraq.