Click on the icon above to learn how you can support our men and women in uniform through the good works of the United Service Organizations: Until Every One Comes Home®.

Go to the Homefront page at ourmilitary.mil for more information on how to help soldiers serving overseas. (Many links to citizen support groups.)

BoldBraveCourageous.com assists and supports wounded soldiers by offering comfort items to injured military personnel who have returned from Afghanistan and Iraq. It is a non-profit, all volunteer organization and donations are tax deductible.  From the home page: "We have not, and we will not forget what they have given on our behalf."

Air Compassion for Veterans.org provides free medically related flights to our wounded warriors and their families. Nearly 14,000 missions have flown since November 2006.

Veterans for America "ensures that the voices of those who have sacrificed immeasurably on behalf our country in recent years are heard and that support commensurate with their sacrifice is provided," including the National Guard. The VFA focuses specifically on the signature wounds of psychological traumas and traumatic brain injuries. You can donate money to provide returning veterans and their families with a Survival Guide. The guides are distributed in family assistance centers and hospitals. Your donation pays for the printing.

Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) supports a new generation of veterans. Established by veterans for veterans. Includes an online community for veterans only and The Transition Home for Families and Friends. The IAVA motto: We've Got Your Back. This site can also be reached by typing: www.communityofveterans.org.

From Helping a Hero.org: [We are] a 501(c)(3) non-profit, non-partisan organization that enables all Americans to say "Thank you for your service" to our wounded heroes in a tangible way. We build specially adapted homes for severely injured military personnel and their families and adapt these homes for the specific injuries and challenges of our wounded heroes...We place these homes in planned communities or master planned communities so they have neighbors who will support them in their recovery. We also partner our home recipients with a service club like Rotary who will nurture this hero and work with the family as they rebuild their lives...To view the recipients of adapted homes, click Changing lives, one veteran at a time.  

The Paralyzed Veterans of America, a congressionally chartered veterans service organization founded in 1946, has developed a unique expertise on a wide variety of issues involving the special needs of its members—veterans of the armed forces who have experienced spinal cord injury or dysfunction. You can securely donate to the Give Back to Veterans Fund or send an eCard to a paralyzed vet.  

The mission of the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans is to end homelessness among veterans by shaping public policy, promoting collaboration and building the capacity of service providers. Includes contact information for specialized programs assisting women veterans and how you can help homeless vets.

An estimated 30 percent of Americans suffering from mesothelioma were exposed to a caustic substance called asbestos during military service. All branches of the military stopped using asbestos by the late 1970s, but veterans serving in the Navy prior to that time were especially affected because every Naval ship and shipyard was fitted with asbestos-containing materials. Asbestos.com offers information on mesothelioma and veterans, as well as a complete list of occupations, ships, and shipyards that could have put our veterans at risk for developing a mesothelioma disease. The Veterans Assistance Department provides expertise in filing VA claims and can help any veteran coping with mesothelioma receive benefits from the VA system.

Goodwill Industries provides services to veterans from all periods of combat. Services include transitional housing, family strengthening, job training and employment. In 2009, nine independent Goodwill agencies across America were able to expand their job training and employment services to homeless veterans because of a series of grants from the US Department of Labor. Learn more about Goodwill's commitment to serving veterans by reading its report Veterans Employment Services: A Review of Effective Practices. (PDF File, Requires the free Adobe® Reader)

From the Mission page of USACares.org: USA Cares provides financial and advocacy assistance to post 9/11 active duty US military service personnel, veterans and their families...We never charge fees nor accepts repayment and rely on donations from private citizens, businesses and foundations for all funding. Our goal is to help restore financial stability and self-sufficiency by giving "a hand up not a hand out." We strive to reach families at the earliest stage of intervention to prevent further financial distress and suffering, especially for the combat injured and their families.

www.militaryfamily.org: By military families for military families, the National Military Family Association advocates for benefits and programs that strengthen and protect uniformed services families and reflect the Nation’s respect for their service. You can also order a free talk kit designed specifically for military parents of tweens and teens. Published by TimetoTalk.org, this kit provides ideas on how to start the conversation about drugs and alcohol, scripts to help you find the right words, tips for answering tough questions, suggestions for making transitions easier on your kids and getting support from other adults around you.

Our Military Kids helps families who often fall outside the parameters of established support programs--the families of National Guard and Reserve service men and women who have been and are continuing to sacrifice so much for our country. For children with a deployed or injured parent. Click here to support the kids. Your contribution or fundraiser provides comfort, routine, stability and fun one child at a time. 

The Freedom Alliance Scholarship Fund honors the bravery and dedication exhibited by Americans in our Armed Forces who have sacrificed life or limb defending our country by providing educational scholarships to their children. Click here to support the scholarship fund. It is a secure site.

Special Operations Warrior Foundation provides college educations to surviving children of fallen Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps special operations personnel who lose their lives in combat or training. It also provides immediate financial assistance for special operations personnel severely wounded in action. There are many ways to give to this four-star charity, including the non-political Restoring Honor Rally at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 2010.  

The Department of Veterans Affairs offers the Readjustment Counseling Service to returning soldiers and their families who want assistance in adapting to life after fighting overseas. The site provides soldiers with information on eligibility and how to contact Vet Centers where counseling is available. It also offers information about Bereavement Counseling for families of soldiers who died serving their country.

The Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, or TAPS, offers comfort and unique resources for military families left behind when their loved ones are killed in the line of duty. Includes an online community and photo gallery. "Remember the love, celebrate the life, share the journey." Click www.taps.org for details. Thank you.

On a lighter note, Operation Happy Note is a volunteer effort to send musical instruments to deployed service men and women throughout the world. Click here to give the gift of music.

If music is healing to you, please turn on your speakers and visit the web site of Susan D. Wiseman. Her mission is to share her gift of song with others. In 2005, her original work It Is The Soldier was awarded the Military Writers Society of America CD/Album of the Year. Click here to listen to more of her recordings. Some of the moving pieces feature her husband Larry S. Wiseman, an accomplished trumpeter. Mr. Wiseman is a member of Bugles Across America and performs Taps at the gravesides of fallen heroes (KIA) and veterans of the US Armed Forces. They are the parents of SPC David Dale Wiseman who was wounded in Iraq from an IED explosion. (2007)

Additional sites that address loss, hope and support appear below. For a comprehensive listing of resources, go to the NationalResourceDirectory.gov: An online partnership for wounded, ill and injured service members, veterans, their families and those who support them. You can make a difference in the lives of soldiers because the Military Appreciation page links to many civilian organizations that succeed only because of the time and talent of volunteers.

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