AAUSS History, Information, & FAQ's
The History of AAUSS In the founder's own words
By the grace of God and the help of a whole lot of volunteers, "Adopt A US Soldier" started after my son first went to Iraq. When he first arrived at Habbinyah, a small town between Ramadi and Fallujah, they had almost nothing. They, the battalion of 3,600, were living in a large airplane hanger with their cots jammed in together. They had MRE’s (meals ready to eat) - and that’s all they had for 5 to 6 months. No matter how much I sent Paul, it was never enough because he would share with his unit. I got all my friends, coworkers, and church members to help. The more we sent, the bigger the circle grew. It was shared by Paul’s unit of 7 guys, then his platoon of 45, then his company of 175.
Before Christmas of 2004, we had sent Paul 3 microwaves, an X-box, tons of food, microwave and snacks, DVD movies, books, magazines, hygiene products, and everything else we could to make life a bit more bearable. Then the thank-you letters started coming in from Paul’s company. They ripped my heart out, “Our barracks looked like a house on Christmas morning when everyone started ripping into the packages”, “All we hear on the news is how against the war everyone is - thanks for giving me hope.”, “You are the real heroes supporting us”, “If you have time, could you write back?”
I was crying my eyes out when a friend called and asked “What’s wrong?” I started to read him the letters. He alerted the media. Radio 850-KOA's heartfelt interview with AAUSS Founder, Ann Johnson helped to set things into motion. On Jan 10, 2005, when it aired, they had gotten such a large response, I got 600 e-mails. They put it on again the next day; that is when I got the first 3 volunteers. Each called and asked what they could do to help.
I asked about their area of expertise: the first was clerical, the second web, and the third a freelance writer! Yes, Lord, this is what I needed. On February 4th, we had a website up and on February 6th, Fox did a piece that I knew would run nationally.
Yet Fox and CNN are picked up around the world, so as a 2-day old organization, we had already gone international. On February 7th, we got our first supporter, the Finleys from Australia, asking if they could adopt. The same day we got our first soldier - not from my son's Battalion of 3,600. An airman, Ryan Boyd, asked “How can I get adopted?”
We are now just over five years old and have over 475,000 supporters from 105 countries with 40 volunteers that help me! One year ago we had 238,000 supporters in 56 countries with 20 volunteers!!!
