FLORENCE, Ky. -- Bill and Jackie Kasten started sending Christmas cards to strangers about 10 years ago. This year, they are writing to 1,440.
Their Christmas greetings from Florence go to Navy ships and Army barracks, to military hospitals and security outposts. One will go to a young Navy man in California who doesn't qualify as a stranger anymore."We started writing to him in 1990," Jackie Kasten said. "Everywhere his ship has been, he sends us a card."
Thanksgiving's long weekend customarily marks the beginning of the four-week stretch of shopping, entertaining and decorating for Christmas. For the Kastens, those four weeks between holidays are the homestretch.
Their holiday tradition of sending cards and letters to soldiers and sailors gets started early in the year, picks up steam in October and by now is in full swing.
The Kastens are only a small part of the army of letter writers who will be sending greetings to U.S. military bases this year. Jackie Kasten chairs the card-sending effort for the Ralph Fulton VFW Auxiliary in Elsmere, which sent 5,204 cards and letters this month through the national "Friends of Our Troops" program. Logan and Jenny Ross from Walton sent 1,000 cards this year. Beatrice Atkins of Erlanger sent 400.
The same thing is going on all over the country.
Glen Wiser, executive director of the national Friends of Our Troops in North Carolina, solicits cards and letters from volunteers from across the country, mixes them, boxes them and ships them out to military units around the world. Wiser said he has received letters from chaplains thanking him for sending the cards.
"For some of the guys, it was the first Christmas mail they got. For others, it was the first mail of any kind that they got," he said.
Sgt. Christopher Creech, Army recruiting officer in Covington, knows the value of those letters first hand. He is from a small town near Hazard and served in Kuwait during Desert Storm.
"It kind of got depressing, being away from family," Creech said. "The one thing that always put a smile on a soldier's face is when the sergeant said 'Mail Call.' "
Creech received regular mail from family and friends, but some soldiers never heard their names called. For them, the letters from strangers became their link to home.
"The mail from strangers, that's probably the best kind of mail to get," Creech said. During war, letters from home have always been considered some of the strongest morale weapons the military has. But they are just as important during peace, Creech said.
"When you're deployed you feel like you're losing touch with the American public. It always helps to know what you're doing is appreciated," he said. "It doesn't matter what kind of mail it is -- anything from a stranger, from another person in your hometown, it makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside. It really does."
For the Kastens, the cards and letters are a sort of "Thank You" to all the strangers who did the same for Bill when he was far away, lonesome and scared in Vietnam.
"Many's the time I thought I'd wear the print out on a card, looking at it just to boost my morale," said Kasten, who served two tours in Vietnam in the 1960s.
"It made a person feel like someone on the other side of the ocean was thinking about you."
The Kastens started sending a touch of home to American servicemen and servicewomen when U.S. troops were deployed to the Persian Gulf for what turned out to be Operation Desert Storm.
Jackie Kasten starts buying Christmas cards by the hundreds on sale right after Christmas. They start addressing the cards and writing an accompanying letter in October. The letters that come back often are quite personal, as lonely soldiers bare their hearts.
"They give you such details of their life," Jackie Kasten said.
"Last year alone we got 40-odd letters and cards," Jackie Kasten said. They came from a Coast Guard patrol boat in Portsmouth, Va., the U.S. Embassy in Mozambique, Africa, from sailors on submarines, from Marines in Hong Kong and airmen in Iceland.
"It's always nice to receive Christmas greetings from total strangers," came one reply. "But when you're overseas, I guess anyone from the good old U.S. of A is not such a stranger after all."
Those who want to send holiday cards and letters to U.S. troops have several options. Because of concerns about terrorism, packages are not being accepted.
Friends of Our Troops sends boxes of letters to various bases. Participants are asked to send at least 10 letters or cards that are no larger than 5 1/2 inches by 7 1/2 inches.
Do not put stamps on the envelopes. Instead, send a check to Friends of Our Troops for the postage. Cost is 25 cents per envelope for 25 or fewer envelopes; 24 cents per envelope for between 26 and 50; 23 cents for between 51 and 100 envelopes; 22 cents for between 101 and 250. The cost continues to drop to a low of 16 cents per envelope for more than 5,000. The price for each envelope is determined by the total amount sent.
Cards should be addressed to "Military Mail" and include a return address. Mail letters and check in one package to Friends of Our Troops, P.O. Box 65408, Fayetteville, NC 28306. The deadline to assure Christmas delivery is Nov. 27. For more information, 910-426-7379. Operation Dear Abby XIV provides addresses for people to write to troops directly. Letters should be under 11 ounces and have first class postage stamps. The addresses follow: For Europe and Southwest Asia: America Remembers Operation Dear Abby XIV APO AE 09135. For the Mediteranean Basin: America Remembers Operation Dear Abby XIV FPO AE 09646. For South America, Central America and the Caribbean: America Remembers Operation Dear Abby XIV FPO AA 34085. For the Far East: America Remembers Operation Dear Abby XIV APO AP 96285. For the Pacific Basin: America Remembers Operation Dear Abby XIV FPO AP 96385. For Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine forces in Bosnia: Any Service Member Operation Joint Forge APO AE 09397-0001 For Navy and Marine Corps personnel aboard ship: Any Service Member Operation Joint Forge FPO AE 09398-0001