Soldiers receive care packages in Korea

Photo By Staff Sgt. Amanda Tucker | More than 200 Soldiers with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 19th Expeditionary Sustainment Command, received care packages from Operation Gratitude at Camp Henry, April 3.  

CAMP HENRY, 27, SOUTH KOREA

04.03.2015

Story by Staff Sgt. Amanda Tucker 

19th Expeditionary Sustainment Command

CAMP HENRY, South Korea - More than 200 Soldiers with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 19th Expeditionary Sustainment Command, received care packages from Operation Gratitude at Camp Henry April 3.

Second Lt. Chelsea McMahon, HHC S-1 officer in charge, and Los Angeles native, coordinated with Operation Gratitude in order to get the care packages for all the Soldiers in her company. She had worked with the program as a teenager prior to joining the military.

"Back when I started going, it was only a few hundred volunteers," said McMahon. "Now, there are over a thousand people that come every day on the weekends [to] make human conveyer belts for the packages."

HHC Soldiers received packages filled with socks, stuffed animals, hand written letters from children, cookies, candy and other key items for deployed Soldiers.

"The Soldiers were smiling and surprised," said Spc. Ashley Alvarez, action clerk for HHC, and San Bernardino, California, native. "[They were] like little kids at Christmas time."

"Most of the things in the packages were things that we could access here," said McMahon. "Even though we aren't deployed, we are still away from home. Most people wouldn't go live in a foreign country for a year. Most people wouldn't be away from home for the holidays."

Alvarez and McMahon spent a good portion of their Friday morning sorting the boxes by section for Soldiers to pick up. With more than 15 Soldiers, it still took more than two hours to unload the boxes and sort through the packages that were labeled by name.

"I wasn't expecting it to have as big of a response as it did," said McMahon. "I think with the junior Soldiers, they appreciated getting something from someone who just wanted to thank them for what they were doing."

• Date Taken: 04.03.2015
• Date Posted: 04.14.2015 00:04
• Story ID: 159894
• Location: CAMP HENRY, 27, KR
• Hometown: LOS ANGELES, CA, US
• Hometown: SAN BERNARDINO, CA, US