Brownies in Oyster Bay and others help keep up spirits of soldiers serving in Iraq, Afghanistan

Air Force Airman 1st Class Sergio Santos was stationed in Iraq, thousands of miles from his Los Angeles home but not far from the thoughts of Brownie Troop No. 217 in Oyster Bay.

 

The group of third-grade girls had "adopted" him in a program called "My Soldier," and in the past year, they have sent Santos letters written in rainbow pen, care packages and boxes upon boxes of those all-time namesake favorites, Girl Scout cookies.

 

"I want him to know that he's doing a good job," said 8-year-old Allison Mahon of East Norwich, a third-grader at St. Dominic's School, where the Brownie troop is based.

 

Santos, 22, has since returned to his home base in Germany, according to Air Force officials, who did not say when he went to Europe. In January, he wrote the girls, saying the letters "brought a smile to me."

 

The Brownie troop is just one of the local participants enrolled in the My Soldier program, an effort coordinated through Manhattanville College in Westchester. It's a free program that connects American civilians with soldiers deployed in hardship areas like Iraq and Afghanistan through pen-pal relationships.

 

So far, more than 400,000 participants have signed up, including at least 1,500 Long Islanders, to adopt more than 175,000 deployed military personnel.

 

That group includes a retired Marine from Upton who sent a care package to a soldier in Iraq that arrived on his birthday and an Upper West Side family that has written for the past year to an Army soldier originally from Florida.

 

"We have received countless letters from the military personnel and they say thank you for the support," said Michael Seminara, My Soldier project coordinator.

 

The Brownies started writing before the holidays last year, and have since sent six cases of Girl Scout cookies to Santos.

 

"The didn't seem to have a lot of awareness of the real danger he was facing," troop leader Carolyn Mahon said. "They focused more on the fact that someone was missing him."

 

Allison wrote her letter with a special rainbow pen on stationery decorated with an American flag. Her friend Kiera Coyne, 8, of East Norwich, asked "what his favorite color was and how old he was, and how many people were in his family."

 

Santos' first and so far only reply to the girls was sent in January from Iraq. He told the troop that he has been in the Air Force since he was 19. He told them how it was 130 degrees in the shade and that he lives in a tent.

 

He also told the troop leader that "this was my first Christmas away from my family, and I can tell they took it very hard," he said.

 

The troop wasn't aware that he has since left Iraq.

 

Michael Paquette of Upton sent a package filled with food, hygiene supplies and stationery to Iraq last year and received a letter from Sgt. Brendan McEvoy, U.S. Army, a scout stationed in Camp Taji, 10 miles northwest of Baghdad.

 

"Sgt. McEvoy wrote that it was a very timely treat since it was his birthday and he was going to share them with his troops," Paquette, 52, a building inspector at Brookhaven National Lab, said. "It is nice to support the troops ... They are getting some support, even from people they don't know."