Many of you know or have heard of me and may be assured that I am very trustful and have honesty written across my face and my mind. I have respectfully served twelve years on Waterville Council. Many in our village have asked me to run again. In 1998 you may recall my running for election as Auditor of Lucas County, OH. Although I did not get elected, had 43 per cent of the entire vote of Lucas County. I give my time freely and without expectation of reward in my position as a member of the board of directors for Family House, the 2nd largest Families only Homeless Shelter in the state of Ohio. I’ve been on this board for the past 12 years serving in the offices of Secretary, the office of Treasurer and now just a Board Member making decisions on the future and direction of the institution. One other community service that I give time to is the Boy Scouts of America, Troop 101 in Waterville, Ohio. I am considered an adult leader and have been registered to teach 3 merit badges within the Turkeyfoot District that encompasses all of Lucas County. They are Citizenship in the Community, Nation and World.

I feel very secure in being able to request a favor of you. A dear friend of mine has a son-in-law that was recently sent to serve in Iraq in the last few weeks. He is in the1st Cavalry Division of the Army assigned to Fort Hood in Texas. Jeff is a specialist in the Army and serves as a loader and driver in a Tank division. He has been married to his wife for the past 1 1/2 years. Recently his wife gave birth to their first child, a daughter, Austyn Faith. She will be 3 months old in a few days. Austyn and her mother currently reside in Springfield Township with Grandma while Jeff is in Iraq.

His wife Andrea had purchased a 500 minute phone card to use in his limited time to call his new wife and ask about the growth and well being of his new daughter. The phone card as you can imagine in a foreign country under enemy fire was used up in a matter of days. There was no control over the charges that the phone system used to debit the phone calls he made. The cost per minute alone was over one dollar plus connection charges and so on.

The call center near his barracks does not allow 419 area code phone calls so he has to travel the other side of the post to access the other call center that will allow 419 area code phone calls. They are not allowed to walk alone, therefore he can only walk to the other side of the post if he can get another soldier to walk with him. It takes a lot of time to walk there and back using up most of his free time which doesn’t allow much to time to make phone calls, of course he can only go there if another soldier is willing to use their free time to walk with him. There is limited access to a computer and he has to pay for internet time and they are only given a few minutes at a time because of the long lines of soldiers that are trying to keep contact with family.

His mother-in-law, the Grandmother of Austyn Faith has asked me if I would know how to raise some money to help this couple. I said I would ask all I knew and them some. She has said that if she could purchase a laptop computer with an internet or wi-fi type connection and a webcam, it could be mailed to him to use on his post in Iraq.

Could we all imagine this soldier’s forever gratefulness to any of us for helping him to see his daughter and wife often on the camera screen while he is in Iraq. I think we all knew of someone or remember someone who was young and recently married. This young couple could use our help. If you could mail 5, 10, 20 or what ever you wish to help this family. I think you will be very happy with yourself as you retell of your unselfish giving to help this family and Austyn Faith. We can all see her father as a proud American Army Soldier.

I thank you for reading this.

.

If you can help, I have opened a Memorial checking account in my name with the notation of For the Benefit (FBO) of Austyn Faith.

This account was opened at the Waterville Banking Center of 5/3. You may use any 5/3 to make a deposit to this wonderful mission.

The account number is 7341577976.

If you would rather mail a check you can to my home address.

Norm Witzler (you may add FBO of Austyn Faith)

Waterville

This entry was posted on Friday, January 9th, 2009 at 3:00 am and is filed under Letter To The Editor, Opinion.
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