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DuPage VFWs helping with flag sales from Healing Field of Honor

There are roughly 10 volumes of letters in the Operation Support Our Troops warehouse in Lisle.

Each contains a stack of messages from members of the armed forces who are stationed overseas and have received care packages from the DuPage County-based organization.

Those thank-you letters reflect the importance of the group's work, founder Deborah Rickert of Naperville says. They demonstrate that for service members facing challenging times abroad, a simple message from home - you are not forgotten - can make a huge difference.

"(The service members) say, 'Mom and Dad are supposed to send us something,' but to get a package like this from complete strangers just blew them away," Rickert said. "It's packed with such love."

With an eye toward helping Operation Support Our Troops continue providing those care packages and other programs, organizers of last year's Healing Field of Honor in Naperville are making some of the flags available for sale this weekend at several VFW posts in DuPage to raise money for the group.

The flags, which cost $30 with or without a pole, will go on sale from 2 to 5 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday at the Naperville, Lisle, Downers Grove and Joliet VFW posts.

Last November's Healing Field featured a display of 2,015 flags on Rotary Hill along Naperville's downtown Riverwalk to mark the 50th anniversary of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.

Roughly 500 of those flags were sold after the event, leaving about 1,500 that are still available. Now, Sue Liston, administrative director for Operation Support Our Troops, says the group is trying to get the remaining flags in the hands of the public.

Proceeds will go toward the Operation Support Our Troops care packages and its Leap of Faith program, which is a three-day seminar to help families cope with the loss of a loved one serving in the military.

"It's living life the way their loved one would have wanted them to live," Liston said. "It's different when you've lost someone in the military, so we kind of address some of those issues."

Some of the money also will go toward research on post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries, and the organization's newest program, GI Yoga.

Liston said the group sends 300 to 400 care packages a month to troops deployed in harm's way.

"Those places where they don't have facilities that they can go get their toothpaste and their toothbrushes and mouthwashes and snacks," Liston said. "They don't have a Wal-Mart down the street."

Rickert founded Operation Support Our Troops after her son joined the military in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"Like so many people who suddenly became military families, we felt sort of lost and didn't know what this meant and kind of started reaching out to try to find other moms in the area," Rickert said.

She started a drive with her church to send Valentine's Day care packages to troops already deployed, and as people kept bringing items to donate, she realized she needed to form the nonprofit group to handle it all.

"What it did was help me to connect with people who understood," Rickert said. "Not only were we doing something where we felt like we're doing something to help, but we're also standing side by side with other people who understood that maybe I haven't heard anything from my son in a week. If I was scared and upset, the person next to me had been through that and could reassure me or vice-versa.

"It's a terrible thing. No family member ever wants to send their family member off to a war zone. You can feel incredibly helpless."

If you go

What: VFW posts around DuPage County are selling flags to benefit Operation Support Our Troops

When: 2 to 5 p.m. Friday, June 10, and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, June 11

Where: VFW halls at 1209 Lisle Place, Lisle; 826 Horseshoe Drive, Joliet; 5101 Belmont, Downers Grove; and 908 Jackson Ave., Naperville

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