Best Charity in America

Do you remember Senior Chief Tommy Valentine? Navy SEAL veteran of multiple tours in Afghanistan and Iraq? Got a workout named after him. Earned the Silver Star, and Bronze Star (twice).

Died in the line of duty in a HALO mishap working up for his tenth combat deployment since 9/11. Left behind a wife, a son, a daughter. The respect of those he served with:

“Senior Chief Valentine was one of the finest SEALs I have ever known,” Capt. Scott Moore, commander, Naval Special Warfare Development group, said in a news release. “He served our country with valor during multiple tours to Afghanistan and Iraq.

“A role model, mentor and incredible leader, Tom epitomized what we as SEALs strive for, a complete commitment to excellence.”

That’s CAPT Scott Moore, CO of DEVGRU. A man who’s known a few SEALs, and not much given to hyperbole if I’m any judge. From a distance.

Not the first of his team to go down.

Tragically, he had just lost “Badger” in late December,just before the squadron returned. And tragically, again, we just lost three operators in the last month, two of whom stood shoulder to shoulder with us when we buried Tom on 28 February at Arlington and became surrogate fathers to my grand children.

Those are the words of David Kalassay, an occasional reader who draws our attention to an event in the honor of Senior Chief Valentine:

On 8 Nov 08 on board NAS Oceana:
The  Inaugural “Tommy V” Challenge, to benefit the Naval Special Warfare Foundation.
A Golf Tournament and Trap and Skeet event for non-golfers, will raise funds to support those families of SEALs and SWCC’s who have made the ultimate sacrifice.

These aren’t guys – guys like me – who strike from the air with relative impunity. They don’t hang back in the rear with the gear. They don’t move in battalion force, there is no “safety in numbers”, the objective odds are not on their side. They train arduously in order to go back – again, and again, and again – to take the fight right up to a brutal, merciless enemy. Close in, face to face. Trusting to themselves, and their teammates and a training regime that is so rigorous that men who have faced the wolf ten times can still lose their lives preparing for the fight.

They leave behind holes in the line that other brave men will eventually fill, however imperfectly. They also leave behind howling voids in the lives of their families that no one will ever be able to step into, that no one will ever be able to entirely fill. The wives that loaned them to us fearfully, the children who will ever only know their fathers by the honor that we do them.

The Navy Special Warfare Foundation – certified by the Independent Charities of America as a “Best Charity in America” – is giving us that opportunity. On November 8, 2008. On board Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia. It’s Navy for Navy, with MWR all in, and the hopes of at least covering the administrative costs so that something comes back to the foundation, and the families.

They’re looking for individual and corporate donations. Tax exempt, of course. A chance to tell the family of Senior Chief Valentine, and the families of too many heroes like him, how much we value what they’ve done for us.

How much should you give?

I don’t know. Think about how much he had in life, and how he gave it all. Think about what he left behind, and how he’ll be remembered.

Times are hard all the way around, I know. Still. Do what you can.

He did all that he could.

“At what level are you willing to participate?”
“All In. All the Time”

SOCS Thomas J. Valentine
-Inbrief talking point for new squadron personnel.

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For further information contact: Mr.K at  chrinch “at” msn.com
757.270.5549

Hooyah.