PDN Needs Help

August 17, 2008 By CJ
Posted in Charities/Contests

The past few weeks have been crazy. I’ve been gone more than I’ve been home. My weekends have been wrecked by travel and work and it seems as soon as I recover from one trip, the next one sneaks up on me. But, I’m not complaining - I could be deployed (though, I wouldn’t mind!). A few days ago I spoke with a friend of mine who manages PatriotWatch.com. I won’t give his name since he didn’t ask me to do this. Hopefully, when he sees it he won’t be upset. But first, some history.

PatriotWatch is a part of the Patriot Defense Network, a group of organization banded together for the good of the “band of brothers”. They bring together groups to accomplish a single goal - to take care of troops. From time to time, emergencies and occasions arise in which a Soldier, Marine, Airmen, or Sailor is unable to take care of himself, regardless of how hard they try. Circumstances beyond their control force them into situations they cannot handle alone or with military assistance. Oftimes, these Soldiers will not ask for the help they desperately need. This is where PDN comes in.

They tap a network of individuals, groups, organizations, and businesses to provide relief to those that need it most. The war on terror has been hard on our troops both emotionally and financially. Add to that the strain of new children, divorces, floods, you name it. Next thing you know, the burden is overbearing. PDN has assisted with funeral arrangements, paid rents and mortgages, car payments, car repairs, flights for family emergencies, and more.

But, they need help. Their donations have dried up for some reason, but the cases have not. PDN needs help bringing groups together that want to help troops but don’t know how. I’m hoping you know of these groups, organizations, individuals, or businesses looking to do something meaningful for our troops sacrificing so much. PDN is a truly ground roots effort. They need our help; not to give money but to find it.

Is there a business in your town that supports the troops and wants to do more? If not, how do you know? If every person reading this could go to ONE business they frequent often and ask them for their support, PDN would be able to meet its obligations and mission to support the troops who can’t support themselves.

One recent example is how website traffic has fallen to an all-time low and we can’t understand why. Low traffic means less help for our deserving troops, wounded warriors and their families. The California National Guard “Band of Colorado Brothers” is just the latest casualty in PDN’s inability to rally visitors. They mailed a check today for only 10% of the $3,500 needed before these brave brothers deploy to Iraq. It breaks their heart to be so ineffective.

Three Colorado National Guard brothers were so motivated to deploy to Iraq that they arranged to join a unit in California so they could deploy together. All three of them are deploying with the unit to Iraq in the next few weeks.

Having just arrived here, tragedy struck at home. One of the brothers who was just married three weeks ago learned his wife passed away last Friday. The soldier and one brother were flown home to Colorado to take care of funeral arrangements. The airline tickets were provided by USAA and petty traveling cash provided by VFW and passing of the hat amongst the unit at Camp Roberts 1/185th California National Guard.

The family faced an additional $4,000 in funeral expenses they could not afford to pay. PDN has been authorized by the family to facilitate direct payments to the mortuary from donations earmarked for that purpose. As I said, though, they were only able to raise $350 of that total!! This coming from an organization that used to be in the top three for internet searches on “Support the troops”. They didn’t fall because of anything they’ve done, failure to support, or mismanagement of funds. Everyone is actually quite perplexed about how their traffic has fallen.

However, I’m not going to let it continue lying down. PDN is a nonprofit organization so any contributions made to them by these businesses is tax deductible. Please help me help them. Check out the site and read the cases they deal with for yourself. More importantly, help spread the word about this worthy cause. If you know of soldier support organization sitting around twiddling their thumbs looking for ways to help, point them in PDN’s direction. Only by doing that can they truly build a Patriot Defense Network.