Click here to view  Pictures from March 21 Family Support Group meeting   

Click here to view Pictures from April 18 Family Support Group meeting

For members of the military and their families

Military Family Support Centers: Each branch of the military has several support centers that serve military members and their families.  These organizations include community services for families at post, family support in navigating through bureaucratic channels, and aid to assist with stressful situations when a loved one is deployed.  Their Web site contains more than 20 links to different organizations in each branch of the military, and Department of Defense programs for all military families.

The Department of Veteran's Affairs Compensation and Pension Benefits Service helps veterans and their families determine what compensation they are entitled to, and how to obtain it. The VA also sponsors an outreach site for families of veterans, which discusses benefits for spouses, parents, and children of veterans. The veterans' life insurance program alerts soldiers and their families to the policy options available.

The Disabled Soldier Support System provides a network of resources for injured members of the military and their families.

American Legion Temporary Financial Assistance Program offers grants and financial support to families of veterans when they have no other available resources.

American Legion Family Support Network works at local or "post" levels to help families of personnel involved in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The Red Cross  offers assistance to military members on active duty and their families, as well as veterans.

The National Military Family Association offers a camp to help children deal with deployment related stress, and also provides links to help families determine to which benefits they are entitled.

Military.comis an "online community" with articles, links, job listings and other information for members of the military, veterans and their families.

Iraq War Veterans provides support for veterans of the Iraq war and their families. The Web site also has links to other assistance and support organizations.

Organizations for others who would like to offer support

Operation Gratitude  sends care packages with food, toiletries, necessities, entertainment items and personal letters of appreciation to American troops abroad.

America Supports You is a nationwide program developed by the Department of Defense that helps people send messages of support to members of the military at home and abroad. The site also has a comprehensive list of aid organizations that accept donations and aid military members and their families.

Armed Forces Relief Trust is a non-profit fund created by the National Association of Broadcasters and the military aid societies to collect and hand out donations and loans in support of the troops and their families in need. The fund accepts private donations.

As you know we are getting really short so I am recommending that the families stop mailing on or about the 5th of January.  The packages are the big concern they may not get here by the time we the leave this FOB.
Letters might make it but I don't recommend trying.  If family members want to risk it they can, but DO NOT put anything valuable inside.  I realize this is short notice and I apologize but I would hate for someone to not get mail.
Everyone here is doing well.  We are just waiting to come home.  Please do not discuss any specifics about our redployment over the phone.  Remember little bits of information can be pieced together and that endangers the safety of your Soldier.

Thanks,
CPT Long

To all,       I have talked with Major Curtis this morning and he confirmed to me that no one in the 115^th was injured or killed in the attack on the Dining Facility located in Mosul.  The Lord continues to bless and protect our soldiers.

Best regards,

RILEY BREWER

MAJ, SC, AL ARNG

115TH SIGNAL BATTALION

   Family Support Group  

Christmas Party          Haleyville High School Cafeteria

 Sunday, December 5th             at 2:00 pm    

**Please bring a dessert or side dish    Everything else will be provided  

Please RSVP to your care group leader.  We need to get an estimate of

the number of people that will be attending to make sure we provide

enough food for everyone.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Haleyville Civitan Club will provide 62 free turkeys

during the Christmas Party.  One turkey will go to each

soldier's family

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December 17th First Methodist Church in Haleyville will

be giving out one bag of groceries to each soldier's family.

  More information will be provided soon.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  

 

 

 

Hey everybody, this is just an FYI email. I'm sure you are all aware of this, but just in case you aren't I thought I would pass this along. I just had to do this for Randy. Several of our soldiers will have their drivers licenses expire will in-country and will need to have them re-issued. You can go to the Drivers License office and ask for a form for this exact situation. (It is for all military, dependants, and out of state) It must be filled out completely, a money order attached and a copy of their orders attached and mailed to Montgomery. Our soldiers will be mailed a "valid  drivers license without a photo or signature" to their APO address. When they return home, they have 30 days to go and have a picture and signature done. If this is not done, they will have to take their driving test and written test again!! If you can't get to the local drivers license office, Tommy Baldy has some of the forms at the Florence Armory (256-764-5721).
Hope this helps!!!

Deployed Guardsmen Morale Call Option 

Deployed guardsmen (both Army and Air) have another convenient way to keep in touch with their state-side loved ones, relatives, and friends.  It's the Morale Call option on the Automated Directory Assistance System (ADAS) installed on several Army installations throughout CONUS.  Phone calls placed by deployed guardsmen to these ADAS sites, will be connected to an automated call attendant and its voice-recognition Morale Call sub-system.  Guardsmen can access the ADAS by Defense Switch Network (DSN) phone line.  Once connected to an ADAS automated call attendant, they need only follow the system's morale-call instructions.  Guardsmen reply to the Morale-Call prompts to make their local or long-distance connection.  Morale calls placed to parties outside the local calling area will incur the usual stateside long-distance fees.  The same applies for collect-calls and credit/phone card calls. Calls should be placed only during normal nonduty hours at ROUTINE precedence and should not exceed 15 minutes in duration.  Most installations have a time turned on to limit the call to 15 minutes.  Below is a list of phone numbers for the various ADAS location:

       Army /Air Base              DSN access number

       Dugway PG                   (312)789-2151

      Fort Benning                (312)835-2011

         Fort Bliss                  (312)978-2121    

      Fort Bragg                  (312)236-0001

       Fort Campbell               (312)635-2151 

       Fort Dix                    (312)944-1011

       Fort Drum                   (312)772-3672

       Fort Eustis                 (312)826-1212

       Fort Gordon                 (312)780-0110

       Fort Hamilton               (312)232-1110

       Fort Hood                   (312)737-1110

       Fort Huachuca               (312)879-7111

       Fort Irwin                  (312)470-1111               

       Fort Jackson                (312)734-7511                 

       Fort Knox                   (312)464-1000              

       Fort Leavenworth            (312)552-4021

       Fort Lee                    (312)539-3101

       Fort Leonard Wood           (312)581-0131

       Fort Lewis                  (312)357-1994              

          Maxwell AFB                 (312)493-1110   

             Fort McPherson              (312)367-4663

       Fort Meade                  (312)622-6261                

       Redstone Arsenal            (312)746-0011

       Fort Riley                  (312)856-1110                 

          Fort Rucker                 (312)558-1110    

       Fort Sill                   (312)639-7090               

       Fort Stewart                (312)870-4663

Questions or concerns can be directed to LTC Kelvin George, at 703-607-7661, or e-mail kelvin.george@ngb.army.mil.

 

To the FRG:

Hope everything is well at home with everyone.  I just wanted to write a few lines to let everyone know at home that we are all doing well.  I told you in an earlier e-mail that we may have soldiers move due to mission requirements; and we have had some soldiers move.  I assure you that we will get their mail to them as it arrives; however, at this time do not look for
another list of soldier and their addresses.

Your soldiers have done many remarkable things since my last letter.  They have continued to improve the quality of life in their respective areas with construction projects, and have worked hard to put sand bags for added protection around our work areas.  They have conducted several patrols to different Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) in our sector to get supplies,
soldiers and equipment to where they are needed.  The soldiers have assisted the mayor cell on FOB Danger with resolving plumbing and electrical issues. They have worked in towers on guard duty, and shuttled Iraqi civilian
officials to different places.  All this has been accomplished while providing nearly flawless communications.

I would love to mention specific names, but it would not do the soldiers justice.  They are all contributing in different ways . . I proud to be associated with all of them.  The soldiers that we have up in Mosul are doing well.  I speak to at least one of them every other day to ensure that they have all that they need.  The majority of the Battalion is with them, and they all look out for each other.  SGM Brooks and I plan to travel there as soon as the mission allows.

LTC Cottles mentioned Operational Security in his rumor control report.  It is very important that missions are not discussed over the phone.  This could potentially put us at risk of attacks and compromise our mission. All of you are continually on our minds and in our prayers, and we are giving 100% to make all of you proud.  Please send rumors to the FRG for
consolidation, and Il answer your questions with each of my letters back home.

The attached pictures are of one of our signal sites and soldiers (Jones, Newton & Gandy) working on site improvement.

Regards,
Sweeney

The Haleyville Elementary School 2nd Grade classes will be doing a presentation honoring the troops. Frank Newton has generously offered to make a PowerPoint presentation to be shown during the presentation. The PowerPoint presentation can be 10 minutes long and we would like to have pictures of parents, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, cousins or even close friends who are in the 115th Signal Battalion that have children attending Haleyville Elementary or Haleyville High School. It would be great if you can get a picture of the soldier holding a special message to the child, in uniform or with the child that could be in the PowerPoint presentation. The pictures need to be to Frank no later than March 30th. If there are pictures on the haleyvillemetro website that can be used please let us know and how to located them on the picture section. The 2nd grade teachers want this to be a very special PowerPoint presentation. So get those pictures to Frank as soon as possible. If you have any questions please call me at 486-7990 or email me at bminor@sonet.net.  Remember the solider needs to be in uniform to go along with the presentation of honoring our troops. There will be a elementary school presentation and a night presentation for the public. We will also send a video copy to the 115th in Iraq. I will get the dates and times to you and on the web page when I get that information.

Thanks.
Beth Minor