U.S. Troops in Afghanistan Whoop back at MSC LEAD

Each fall for the past six years MSC LEAD, the Memorial Student Center’s sophomore leadership organization, has conducted Whoop! For Troops, a care package and greeting card donation drive to benefit U.S. troops serving overseas.  Local schoolchildren once again created thousands of greeting cards, and thousands of Texas A&M students signed them with expressions of good wishes and gratitude for the sacrifices U.S. soldiers make throughout the year.  For several weeks in November and December LEAD members once again collected donations of shirts, toiletries, non-perishable food, calling cards, and other care package items.

According to Taylor Smith ‘15, Director of MSC LEAD’s Community Service subcommittee, which led Whoop! For Troops, this year’s efforts resulted in a record amount of donations.  In early December the group was excited to discover that they had collected over $5,000 of donations—over 120 boxes of merchandise and over 2,000 greeting cards—to send to Support Our Troops, a national non-profit organization that coordinates care package shipments overseas.  “It was the biggest shipment we’ve ever made,” said Smith.

She attributes the group’s success, at least in part, to some new collaborations the group was able to form this year.  “The biggest difference for us this year was in our outreach to vendors,” Smith said.  “Aggieland Outfitters especially helped us by donating a lot of t-shirts,” she says, also noting that Aggie Moms clubs also made significant contributions to Whoop! For Troops.  The group also experienced great success when they informally teamed up with the student chapter of Patriot PAWS, an organization that trains and provides service dogs for American veterans.  According to Smith, “having the service dogs with us at our resource tables attracted a lot of attention. Everyone wanted to pet the dogs, so while people were waiting, we could ask them to sign a card and make a donation for the troops.  It helped Patriot PAWS let people know about their organization too.”

Even more exciting than collecting a record amount of donations was the response those donations generated.  Shortly after the care packages were shipped, MSC LEAD received a handful of thank you messages from the 831st DDST and the 2nd Anglico Marines stationed at Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan.  The full text of those thank you messages are included below.

MSC SCONA Speakers Share Their Experiences Working in the Middle East

Shannon Sedgwick Davis, who currently leads the Bridgeway Foundation in its efforts to fight violence and oppression and promote peacemaking in the world’s poorest countries, has also played an important role in the campaign to capture Joseph Kony, the Ugandan man wanted by the International Criminal Court for abducting tens of thousands of people for conscription into the Lord’s Resistance Army. Stuart Bowen served as the “taxpayer’s watchdog” in Iraq for nine years in his role as the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. General James Mattis, USMC, commanded assault battalions in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm and also commanded Marine forces during Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Dr. Andrew Natsios led efforts to deal with the Darfur crisis as the U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan and is currently Director of the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs.    

These four speakers will all be on campus this week Thursday and Friday, February 20^th and 21^st, as part of the 59^th MSC Student Conference on National Affairs (SCONA).  The title of this year’s SCONA is “Caught In the Sandstorm:  from Persia to the Sahara,” so all four speakers will share with conference delegates their experiences and expertise working in the Middle East.  These speaker programs are also free and open to the public as part of the MSC SCONA committee’s ongoing effort to provide students with access to diplomats and national affairs professionals and the knowledge they can provide. 

The speaker schedule is as follows:

Stuart Bowen – Thursday, February 20 at 9am in MSC Gates Room

General James Mattis, USMC – Thursday, February 20 at 2pm in Rudder Theater

Dr. Andrew Natsios – Friday, February 21 at 9am in MSC Gates Room

Shannon Sedgwick Davis – Friday, February 21 at 2:30pm in MSC Gates Room

Complete speaker bios are available after the jump.

MSC Wiley Lecture Program Examines Texas' Political Future

Last Wednesday the MSC Wiley Lecture Series hosted "A Swing in the South: Texas' Future in American Politics." Guest speakers included Phil Shackelford, former Democratic field representative; John Jackson, a Republican Party staff member; and Dr. Harvey Tucker, Professor in the Political Science department at Texas A&M University. You can read The Battalion's coverage of the program here.

Places in the Plaza Brings the Global Village to Rudder Plaza

MSC Freshman Leadership International (FLI), with the help of MSC Town Hall, MSC Hospitality, and the MSC Jordan Institute for International Awareness will be bringing the world to Rudder Plaza this Friday, February 21st from 5-8:30pm for a brand new program they are calling Places in the Plaza. This cultural festival will feature organizations representing cultures, religions, and international service projects from all over the world.

Each organization staffing a booth will bring games, food, and stories from the culture they represent, and event organizers from MSC FLI see this event as an incredible opportunity for students of Texas A&M and residents of the Bryan/College Station community to increase their cultural knowledge base and expand their global horizons. Alex Hager, a coordinator for the event says that "everyone from kids to adults will find something to pique their interests at the festival, and our aim is for everyone to learn in a fun and interactive atmosphere."