ABILENE, Texas (AP) - In one regard, Snowball Express has certainly lived up to its name.
“It literally has snowballed,” said Jim Kaiser. “It started from a few hundred volunteers and now we’ve got 2,000 people. So, it’s quite the deal.”
The Abilene Reporter-News reports Kaiser was standing beside an airplane parked among the other static displays May 12 during the Dyess Big Country Air & Space Expo. He and Rob Bowen, one of the plane’s owners, had flown the light, twin-engine Beechcraft Baron B55 to the air show to honor the military members who have lost their lives since 9/11, their names painted along the fuselage of the plane.
“We’ve got 7,672 names on there right now,” Kaiser said. “We’ve got them in chronological order of death on the airplane, mostly.”
A nearby table manned by his wife Michelle, also the librarian for the Cross Plains Public Library, features a book for visitors to thumb through. The names are cataloged by columns on the aircraft so a given person might be more easily located.
“We call it the ’Snowball Express: We Remember Tour,’” Kaiser said. “We are part of the Gary Sinise Foundation . Every year we bring families together in a communal-healing aspect.”
Snowball Express was started in 2006 after the publication of a letter from a soldier to his wife. U.S. Army Pfc. Jesse Givens had left it behind when he deployed to Iraq, instructing her in a note on the envelope not to open it unless something happened to him.
“He didn’t come back,” Kaiser said. “In this letter, he talked about how much he loved his family, the things that he wanted them to do.”
Givens had a young son and another child on the way. In the letter, he asked his wife Melissa to make sure she took their children to Disney World in Florida.
“Some people read it and thought they needed to help them,” Kaiser said. “They realized there were hundreds of people in that same situation who had lost a loved one in the war. So, they decided to take them to Disneyland, because they were in California and was closer.”
Included on the airplane are six names from Dyess Air Force Base, the victims of an Oct. 2, 2015, C-130 crash in Afghanistan.
“I was just talking to a couple who intimately knew one of the pilots who went down,” said Bowen. “They found his name on the plane and they had a story.”
Bowen said the book teaches visitors about those who died.
“I’ve found people who were in a helicopter, the lone survivor of a group, Medal of Honor winners,” he said. “The stories are incredible, you can just pick any one and read them.”
All of the names are drawn from official Department of Defense casualty lists.
“They were all active military who lost their life since 9/11,” Kaiser said. “With a lot of people, they hear ’onesie-twosie’ kinds of deaths, and it doesn’t strike really strike home.
“But when you see all these names on this airplane, and you realize every one of those is a husband, a father, a brother, a son; or a mother, a daughter, a wife, a sister, it’s big. It has a big impact on people.”
Gold Star families are those who have lost a loved one in the military. Each year Fort Worth-based American Airlines donates aircraft, and flight crews donate their time, to fly Gold Star families to Disney’s theme park. Kaiser and Bowen work for American and this year, Snowball Express will fly the families to Disney World Dec. 8-12.
But the organization is about more than a trip to Space Mountain or Pirates of the Caribbean.
“We bring them together for communal healing, they bond together,” Kaiser said. “We bring in a group of resource people to make sure (the families) are getting all their insurance benefits, all the financial aid they’re supposed to get, I.D. cards, etc.”
The nonprofit group has been based in the Dallas-Fort Worth area since 2009. Actor Gary Sinise, perhaps best known as Lt. Dan in “Forrest Gump,” has been involved with Snowball Express since 2007. On Jan. 1, he brought the group into his foundation which supports veterans, their families and first responders.
Kaiser said while their efforts are to remind the public of the sacrifices made by Americans for their country, they also emphasize the healing environment their group has created for the children of these fallen service members.
“We’ve had families that say their children benefited more from the four days of Snowball Express than three years of therapy,” he said. “It’s really a great experience.”
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Information from: Abilene Reporter-News, http://www.reporternews.com
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