Stephen King Pays For Troops Ride Home For Christmas

This is a nice gesture. They're away for training and leaving for Afghanistan in January. King and his wife coughed up $12,999 so 150 of them could take a bus home for Christmas. Wish we read more of these stories where people with cash step up. King didn't want to donate 13k. He thought it unlucky. heh Someone came up with the additional buck.

Who would'a thunk the horror King would write a nice Christmas story?

BANGOR, Maine (AP) -- Author Stephen King and his wife are donating money so 150 soldiers from the Maine Army National Guard can come home for the holidays.

King and his wife, Tabitha, who live in Bangor, are paying $13,000 toward the cost of two bus trips so that members of the 3rd Battalion, 172nd Infantry Unit can travel from Camp Atterbury in Indiana to Maine for Christmas. The soldiers left Maine last week for training at Camp Atterbury. They are scheduled to depart for Afghanistan in January.

Comments

[Elmo]

I feel confident, I know why there's some optimism in retail. People are finally begining to understand. All is not right in the world. Things may get worse, a lot. And they aren't going to let it stop them, from enjoying Christmas. Kind of a fungulo Pharoah Obama/P.M.D.C. (pedophilic moong*d death cult) ... all the way up. With a red hot poker. Ya ain' takin Christmas from us!

That's my story ... and I'm stickin tuit.

[richard mcenroe]

It's a nice gesture, but King is still an asshole lefty who has expressed nothing but contempt for the military in all his writings and public utterances. Still won't be rushing out to buy any of his books.

[Lala]

I've been told that only right-wing people are superstitious.

[southdakotaboy]

Well that was nice of him.

[sompost]

Hello great site, could you exchange my link?
Here is my site
http://sompost.com/
I hope you could do and please let me know if you could do

THanks you
Warmest hug
sompost

[KingShamus]

Yeah, Richard is pretty much right. KIng is a liberal hack. But this is a good and decent gesture, so we should recognize it as such. One and a half cheers for Stephen King.

[Alan K. Henderson]

As long as he's not buying the troops haunted 57 Chevies and maladjusted St. Bernards - cheers!

[SinLater]

May not like his politics. But this is something.............we can all make real. Find a site that helps our military, make a donation. God bless our troops.

[David R. Graham]

Huge amounts of money and donations of food, books, money, living supplies, etc. go to the troops from all across the nation and have been since 2003. West Point Parents were among the first or were first to make it a major national effort for all Soldier Parents, and for all Soldiers, all ranks, not just West Pointers. The private, unsung, forever quiet outpouring of donations such as just mentioned is incalculable but huge. Parents in particular have spent high millions perhaps even billions of dollars sending their offspring and their offsprings' friends and Soldiers supplies of all kinds

One of the most amusing, early on in OIF was Kotex pads as liners for helmets to keep sweat out of eyes. And neckerchiefs that hold water for cooling. The list is very long. The money spent is very much. Very much!

And then there are the employers who go to the hospitals and hire wounded Soldiers, lots and lots of them. It's another huge operation. All anonymous, as is comme il faut.

So who told the press Stephen King spent X amount of dollars? Probably Stephen King or his agent or accountant! He's in the self-promotion business, after all. Did his attorney/PR guide tell him that would be a good self-promo, help sell books.

A bus trip? Christmas on a bus traveling? Why didn't he give them plane fare? Certainly he could have and not felt it.

If he had felt it then it would enter the territory of commendability. He doesn't feel $13K, so that's just a PR stunt for self-promotion.

I know parents and supporters who, individually, have spent far more than that. Far more. And they don't call the papers and "trumpet their charity."

The only good charity is the anonymous kind, the kind without tinge of ego. King's is not that at all. It's despicable and certainly not charity or philanthropy by the very fact that it is in the news. Philanthropy is when one feels it, the deeper the better, and takes the diminishment willingly to actually be kind to someone -- and in secret.

Most rich people get away with calling themselves charitable and philanthropic when all they do is calculate how much to give to lower their taxes or give themselves some other advantage or make themselves look good in public -- but never feel they are giving up anything, actually sacrificing themselves for the welfare of another. That would be unthinkable.

I say most. It is not all. Some few know what giving really is and they do it anonymously, as is proper. King's hitting the news shows he is not among them. He's just another despicable self-promoter. A terror writer doing philanthropy? As if!

[vitamins]

Funny, I thought we got into WW I because our ships were being sunk by the Kaiser's wolfpacks (submarines) and that we got into WW II because the Japanese Imperial Navy attacked our fleet at Pearl Harbor, and that we got into the Korean War because the North Koreans invaded S. Korea which at the time was a US protectorate under UN auspices. And now you tell me that it was all done by the Dems! Who knew?

[USMC]

It amazes me with the trillions spent on pathetic garbage we need to have charities for the troops.
I know that sounds bad but think about it. Government workers average pay is over $70,000. Most of those workers are "non-essential" and not needed.

A Marine private makes pathetic pay. A Marine private is more vital than 90% of government "workers".

A government who sends it's troops to kill and suffer unimaginable horrors can't foot the bill to send them home for Christmas when not engaged in an operation is a pathetic government. What do you expect from progressives. A government and dare I say a people who TRULY honored the warriors would truly take care of them.

I admire all these charities but it shouldn't be if the government did it's damn job.

"The only good charity is the anonymous kind, the kind without tinge of ego. King's is not that at all. It's despicable and certainly not charity or philanthropy by the very fact that it is in the news. Philanthropy is when one feels it, the deeper the better, and takes the diminishment willingly to actually be kind to someone -- and in secret." - David R. Graham

Brilliant point. Sometimes it's necessary to announce to perhaps promote a new charity drive and hopefully motivate others to do the same. But most philanthropy should be done in secret when possible.

[seekeronos]

Here's something to set the record straight, in brief:

WWI: Woodrow Wilson decides to get us involved by hook or by crook in some silly tiff between the German Empire, the UK, and France, who were all overwrought over some Serbian terrorist who potted a Hapsburgian noble in 1914.

There was actually very little popular drive amongst Americans to get involved in what was essentially a European war until the Brits capitalized on a rather stupid oversight by the Germans - sending a (the infamous Zimmerman) telegraph over an unsecure line (part British, part US) using ciphers that had been partially or completely broken.

A rather desperate and stupid move, on account of even if the ciphers had not been broken or the message intercepted by British intelligence, the Mexicans of that time would never have been able to reconquer the Southwest, much less hold down a hostile, armed English speaking population - and German offers of financial and arms support were empty promises at best, since the whole object of trying to get Mexico in the war against the USA was to keep the USA distracted from Europe.

Of course, this made armaments manufacturers quite happy indeed.

And while Woodrow Wilson was elected in his second term for "keeping us out of the war", he was first and foremost an internationalist.

WWII: FDR wanted to get involved in this hot potato as far back as the Munich Agreement, where he first saw Hitler as a threat to the world. A consummate internationalist as well, he helped to engineer a number of scenarios to bring us into the German war in the Atlantic, and when Hitler had ordered the Kriegsmarine not to take the bait (i.e. go out of their way to avoid incidents with the USN and US merchant shipping) - he resorted to pushing the Japanese into a corner through a very heavy, negative PR campaign against Japan's activities in China and even exercising a practical blockade of Japan's oil and other war resources.

Pearl Harbour was beautifully masterminded to elicit the maximum effect of public outrage (through the pre-positioning of ADM Kimmel's fleet, i.e. not allowing him to sortie the battleships when he had actionable intelligence that the IJN was possibly operating within striking range, denial or obfuscation of radar reports from the Opana Base, and many other such derelictions of duty) along with delaying the telegram from the Japanese Foreign Minister to arrive after the attack had commenced, thus making it appear all the more as a "sneak attack" in the same vein that the Japanese had committed against the Russians at Port Arthur in the 1905 Russo-Japanese war.

War Secretary Henry L. Stimson recorded the matter in his diary: "...how we should maneuver them [the Japanese] into the position of firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves."

Korea: By this point, we had already become the world's policeman - and under the gallant purpose of "containing communism", the powers that be entered us into that war as well.

From a strategic standpoint, once the ChiComs involved themselves (by flooding several million screaming Chinamen over the Yalu River) we erred greatly by not following MacArthur's advice to nuke the Red Chinese when we had the chance to do so (they had not attained the bomb yet).

[richard mcenroe]

"Find a site that helps our military, make a donation. God bless our troops."

www.opgratitude.com

They're shipping their 500,000th package to the troops this weekend (12/19/09).

Korea: Truman's secretary of state assures the Russians Korea is "not in our sphere of interest."

[memoire d'ordinateur portable]

Stephen and Tabitha King have always been on the right side of things. They are compassionate, caring, generous people who continuously support the people of Maine and their own community. Thank you for being such good role models for how to be decent human beings.

[Conservababe]

I love Stephen King's writing, although not his politics. But I agree -- why not plane tickets, Stephen and family?

PS. SK, if you're reading this...I'm in the process of rereading all your books and catching the ones I missed first time around. Time to hit the used bookstore for more. I think "Insomnia" is still the best.

[kaymonproductions.com]

Decorate your house for Christmas should always include a Christmas tree. After decorating the tree with ornaments and home-strung popcorn, take over the other branches, measures in the home