Jo’s Cafe

First, from WRAL.com, news from Fayetteville, NC:

Christmas Miracle: Soldiers Fly Home for Holidays for Free

Fort Bragg — Southwest Airlines picked up the tab to fly 180 soldiers temporarily stationed at Fort Bragg home to Texas for the holidays.

The members of the Texas National Guard were stationed at Fort Bragg and expected to be deployed to Afghanistan before the holidays, said John Lucy, assistant director of the United Service Organization’s center at Raleigh-Durham International Airport.

When their deployment was delayed, the soldiers were granted a week of holiday leave, and the possibility of being home for Christmas arose. Relatives, however, could not raise enough money for airfare, and coming home was an “all or none” event for the group of soldiers, Lucy said.

Southwest Airlines stepped in and offered to fly the soldiers free of charge from RDU. The USO helped organized the effort, and Southwest dubbed it “Operation Christmas Miracle.”

Here is an email from my sister-in-law, a USO Volunteer (and in one of the pictures):

Dear Family and Friends,

I am sending you this because I want to encourage you all to use Southwest Airlines…I spent last night at the airport with these guys and what Southwest Airlines did is such a wonderful thing. So many times, we see great sadness at the USO as our soldiers deploy, but this was a joyous occasion thanks to Southwest Airlines. Knowing that these guys and women will be going to Afghanistan shortly made it that much more special for them and for us..they get to have Christmas at home with their families compliments of Southwest Airlines. It is so heartwarming to see our military families supported in this way. One of the women I talked with has three children at home waiting for her-the youngest is 6 years old…another man has five daughters at home waiting to see their daddy….These soldiers will be putting their lives on the line for us and I will be using Southwest Airlines for my flying needs..I am glad that WRAL decided to put this on their website, but I will tell you that those photos were taken by the USO director, because none of the news people wanted to come out at 2 am for this story! Have a very Merry Christmas. Cxxx

Thank you Southwest Airlines! They do not have an e-mail address on their website, but you can call or mail them your thanks. Southwest Airlines Contact Us page.