Support,Wal-Mart, Sam's Club and VFW

By Gerry J. Gilmore
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Nov. 16, 2004 –- More than 900,000
servicemembers serving worldwide
will be able to write and call home during this holiday
season thanks to the
generosity of Wal-Mart, Sam's Club and the Veterans of
Foreign Wars.

This is the third year Wal-Mart and the VFW have partnered
to provide free
phone cards to deployed servicemembers through the
Operation Uplink program,
said Michael Meyer, administrator for corporate development
for the VFW
Foundation at VFW's national headquarters in Kansas City,
Mo.

This year, the two organizations, plus Sam's Club, a
division of Wal-Mart, will
co-sponsor the sending of new MACK -- Military Assistance
Communications Kit --
programs to 900,000 servicemembers overseas, Meyer said.

Each kit, Meyer noted, contains a phone card, writing
paper, note cards,
envelopes, a folder with a 2005 calendar and a letter of
support.

The Wal-Mart-VFW partnership has provided more than 2.3
million free phone
cards to active servicemembers in the past two years. The
VFW began the
Operation Uplink program in 1996.

"We've provided prepaid phone cards to our servicemen and
women for a number of
years now," noted Meyer, a Vietnam veteran. He said his
organization
understands "how important these phone cards are" to
deployed servicemembers
and their loved ones.

Meyer lauded the many VFW members who solicit donations for
phone cards and
other veterans' programs. These people "are the backbone"
of the organization,
he said.

Programs like MACK, he pointed out, come about through a
combination of
corporate support and individual effort.
The first batch of MACKs was sent out to overseas
servicemembers via Federal
Express on Nov. 11, Veterans Day.

Dan Fogleman, Wal-Mart spokesman at the company's
Bentonville, Ark.,
headquarters, noted that MACK "is new, a next step in
Operation Uplink."
Besides providing free phone cards, he noted, the MACK also
contains paper and
envelopes, which are "in short supply in some areas of the
world."

"The men and women in the armed forces want to know they're
being remembered
for their service, and that's what we're doing at
Wal-Mart," Fogleman said.

Wal-Mart, a discount retailer established in 1962, has a
long history of
supporting servicemembers, Fogleman said, pointing to
company pay and benefits
differentials provided to deployed Guard and reserve
members and donations
provided by the Wal-Mart and Sam's Club foundations. In
fact, he said, the two
foundations recently made a $1 million donation to the VFW
foundation,
specifically to meet the needs of servicemen and women,
past and present.

Regarding the new MACK program, Fogleman said his company
is "very proud to
again partner with the VFW to bring our servicemen and
women this gift of
communication."

With the holidays coming up, Fogleman noted that many
deployed servicemen and
women will be feeling the effects of being deployed far
away from home and
loved ones.

The MACK and Operation Uplink programs, he pointed out,
enable military
personnel deployed overseas to call home free from
virtually anywhere in the
world.

"Imagine what a gift that would be, to hear your parents,
wife, husband or
child from half a world away," he said.

Kathy Cox, the community program development manager for
the Wal-Mart
foundation, spoke of receiving an e-mail from Dale
Stevenson, a Wal-Mart
assistant store manager who works in St. Petersburg, Fla.
In his message,
Stevenson, whose son, Andrew, is a Navy man deployed to
Fallujah, Iraq, thanks
"the people responsible for Operation Uplink and also for
the MACK packs."

Stevenson said his son had called him using a
Wal-Mart/VFW-supplied phone card
during a stopover in Germany en route to Iraq.

"He told me that there was a small sign next to the box
that said that the VFW
and Wal-Mart had provided these cards for the boys to stay
in contact with
parents," the elder Stevenson wrote to Wal-Mart in his
e-mail.

"I can tell you that just hearing my son's voice is truly a
treasure," the
father said, according to Cox, "one which was made possible
by your efforts,
and the efforts of the men and women at the VFW.

"I just wanted to let you know that it really makes a
difference," he said.