2008 Southwest Division Marine of the Year
John Wintersteen
Project Marine Care
The Project was started when I went to the funeral of a local Marine, Lance Corporal Kyle Crowley and felt the need to do something to support our Marines and Corpsmen. A Gunny in Florida suggested packages and sent me some addresses of Marines to get us started - I enlisted my Detachment (942) and they immediately jumped in to help.
Since May of 2004, my Detachment has shipped 4,440 packages or 56,000 lbs of goods to our troops. Boxes are sent to all branches, but primarily Marines and Corpsmen serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. We try to reach those units who are far from a PX or from re-supply. We also try to find those who don’t receive much from home and send them a little extra.
We put a return postcard in every box so the warrior can respond to receiving the goods – which consist of food items, toiletries, snacks like beef jerky and power bars, socks, bug repellent, sunscreen, foot powder, baby wipes, lip balm, gun cleaner, tools, books & magazines, games and writing materials. Female items are sent to our Women Marines and sailors.
When we receive the postcards, letters and emails, we create a newsletter, or Update, from the responses we receive. This goes to our contributors and interested people. The Updates are then emailed to those people and a copy of each Update is place in the package so the troops can see what we’re doing and can often read the comments of people they know or see their own comments in subsequent Updates.
It is essential to us that the Marine Corps League is identified by adding the name to our shipping labels, our return postcards and in the Updates. We believe many of today’s Marines don’t know about the League and that this is a way to inform them about it.
Respectfully submitted,
John Wintersteen
Mt. Diablo Detachment 942
Marine Corps League
