I am still around but the days seem to slip by and I do not get on here to update. My life has been busy with volunteering. I am very busy with the Palliative Care Committee as we are trying to fundraise enough to build a four season sunroom off the palliative care room. We want to make our patients final days a happy, peaceful one and the sunroom would provide them space with their families and also windows that open to let in fresh air. We hope to have a garden area as well to be enjoyed by all. It is a huge undertaking but I think within two years we will have it completed.
I have also been volunteering at the H1N1 & Seasonal Flu Clinics. I spent 9 hours helping out last Friday and we hope to do two more unless they get cancelled due to no vaccine. I got mine last week, I got both the seasonal and H1N1 shots because of the asthma and how I catch things so easily.
Today I worked on making more of the pocket posties that I get signed for the troops. I got over 2,000 to cut out and then stamp. I received a wonderful letter from one of the soldiers that made every single minute of making these little posties and getting them signed all worthwhile. He gave me permission t use his email so I will include it here....
Hello everyone,
Not sure who I am sending this e-mail to, but found a box containing quite a few Canada Flag cards with a note written on the back of each one to a Canadian Soldier. I took a few that had e-mail address on them and well, thought I would drop you a line.
My name is Warrant Officer Dan Jessome, a member of the Canadian Forces currently deployed to Afghanistan as part of the International Security Assistance Force. My career has provided me with many adventures from fighting fires in BC, floods in Manitoba, Ice Storm in Quebec, overseas to Kosovo with NATO, Israel and Bosnia Peace Keeping with the United Nations and now here I am in Afghanistan.
This is my first tour to Afghanistan and from the moment I stepped off the plane, it has been one experience after another. We are doing lots of good for the people who live in this unstable Country from building schools for children, drilling wells for villagers who normally get their water out of the contaminated streams and rivers to clearing fields of unexploded ordnance so that they can plant crops to eat.
As a Canadian Soldier I hadn't a true appreciation as to how well respect we actually were as a Military until arriving here. Our Soldiers are among some of the best trained, best equipped and above all else, strongly supported by the people back home. I stand out among the 30+ Countries here in support of this mission because I wear our flag on my right shoulder. That fact alone, each and every Canadian can take great pride in. As Remembrance Day draws closer, I can't help but remember back as a child, my Dad taking my brother, sister and me to the local Ceremony in my home town of Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. I recall standing there watching all these men and women who paraded by and wondering what stories they could tell. Here I am so many years later thinking I am now one of those people that I once stood and watched. This past Summer I was in Germany attending a course on some specific equipment here in Theatre. While there, I was fortunate to have visited two of the Canadian War Memorials, one in Vimy, France (WWI), and the other in Nijmegen, Holland (WWII). As I walked the Canadian War Cemeteries in both those locations, I was overwhelmed with emotion. Learning about the history of these places going through school, I hadn't put a whole lot of thought to what they actually stood for. To physically be there and experience the ambiance of that environment, I quickly realized why I do what I do. We are and always have been a Country who has stood up for what was right and did everything we could to assist others to experience the freedoms that we have as Canadians. Although there are many dangers here in Afghanistan, I am honoured to carry the torch as those who have gone before me.
So to close, thank you for the support. I looked for an e-mail address for the Major Pratt School in Russell, MB but came up empty handed. If any of you live close, could you please pass this along to the Principal? on my behalf.
I was that which others did not want to be
I went where others feared to go and did what others failed to do
I asked nothing from those who gave nothing and reluctantly accepted the thought of eternal loneliness, should I fail
I have seen the face of terror
Felt the stinging cold of fear and enjoyed the sweet taste of a moment's love
I have cried, pained and hoped .....
But most of all I have lived times others would say were best forgotten
At least some day I will be able to say
That I was proud of what I was ......
A SOLDIER
Sincerely, thank you for the support and encouragement. Although it is just a short note and I was the one to be fortunate enough to read it, when you wrote it, you has us all in mind.
Daniel Jessome
Warrant Officer / Adjudant
Ancil Pl Comd, Maint Coy / Cmdt Pon Aux, Cie Maint
Joint Task Force Afghanistan Force opérationnelle interarmées
National Defence / Défense Nationale
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