Published: December 15, 2006 12:23 am         

Chauncey Rose student's letter to troops chosen as best in nation

TERRE HAUTE — A Chauncey Rose middle school eighth-grader’s “Connect with the Troops” letter has been selected as the best out of around 20,000 letters in a national program designed to keep people connected with U.S. troops serving overseas.

“I was actually pretty surprised,” said Marlin Hill, 13, when he learned his letter was chosen. Having his letter chosen, and read at the Pentagon, was “better than any trophy or award I could get,” he said.

Hill’s letter, along with thousands of others from students around the country, will be presented to the military during half-time of the Armed Forces Bowl football game in Fort Worth, Texas on Dec. 23.

Hill’s short letter “was so pure … so sincere … so succinct,” said Lt. Col. John R. Newman of the Indiana Air National Guard 181st Fighter Wing based in Terre Haute. “It comes from the heart,” he said.

Hill said family members and other people he knows who have served or are serving in the military were his inspiration for what he wrote.

“We always see heroes on TV,” Hill said, such as “Spider-man, Superman … but these are the real heroes. If countries were teams, they’d be our MVPs.”

Hill and other members of the Chauncey Rose student council read their letters aloud at a presentation Thursday in the school. All the letters submitted from Chauncey Rose were outstanding, Principal Jeanette Riggs said.

The letter-writing campaign was started by Connect and Join, an Internet-based communications company that specializes in connecting families with U.S. troops overseas. All the letters will be scanned onto CDs, company founder Linda Dennis said. The originals will be sent to troops in Iraq on Dec. 24, while the CD copies will become part of the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress, she said.

“The troops will love” receiving these letters, Dennis said.

Chauncey Rose is just one of a handful of schools Connect and Join has chosen to visit. About 500 schools across the country participated in the program, Dennis said.

Arthur Foulkes can be contacted at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes @tribstar.com.



Chauncey Rose eighth-grader Marlin Hill’s (above) letter to troops serving overseas was chosen by Connect and Join as the best of some 20,000 letters submitted from around the country. The letters will be sent to Iraq on Christmas Eve. The text of Hill’s letter:



Dear Soldier,

Thank you for fighting for our country. It takes more than a man to go to enemy territory and knowing that you may be shot or killed by a bullet, or a bomb, knowing that yet still wanting to go out and fighting everyday, that to me makes a true hero.

I truly hope that you come home safely, because without you the United States would be in the hands of terrorists.

From, Marlin Hill