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Couple Mail Troops Care Packages

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By TONY MARRERO, Hernando Today

Published: January 2, 2008

BROOKSVILLE - By October 2005, Ed and Maxine Kolbe were tired of simply watching American men and women fight a war on the other side of the world.

The retirees couldn't go to Iraq or Afghanistan to serve with American armed forces.

The Brookridge residents reasoned, however, that they could help make life better for service personnel by sending care packages. Their grandson's stint in Iraq offered them a first-hand account of how much even simple things such as socks, soap and stationery can mean.

On Thursday, more than two years later, the Kolbes sent their 1,000th package from a post office on Aviation Loop Drive.

Ed Kolbe said his wife deserves most of the credit.

"I'm just really proud of her," he said. "She's done a terrific job."

"I can't believe we've gotten to that amount," Maxine said as the couple unloaded packages from the trunk of their car and into a cart in front of the post office. "We said we'd keep going as long as we could afford to or we got help."

"And," she said, "we are getting help."

The assistance has come from neighbors in Brookridge and other area residents who learned of the couple's effort and donated supplies and cash for postage.

Another sizeable portion came from a fund created in honor of one of the three Hernando County servicemen killed in action since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began.

In fact, the post office on Aviation Loop Drive was recently dedicated to Marine Sgt. Lea R. Mills.

On Thursday, his mother, Dee Mills, wrote the check from the nonprofit Lea's Prayers and Postage to send the Kolbes' milestone package.

Lea Mills, a 2002 graduate of Hernando High School, was killed April 28, 2006, by a roadside bomb while on patrol in Iraq's Al Anbar province. He was 21.

Dee Mills started the nonprofit corporation to collect and distribute donations to pay for postage for care packages to troops. Mills has collected and distributed nearly $40,000 since May 2006.

Mills and the Kolbes estimate Lea's Prayers and Postage has paid for some 800 of the Kolbes' packages.

"We're working together toward a common goal," Mills said. "It makes it doable for both of us."

'Grandma Maxine And Grandpa Ed'

The Kolbes include letters that tell a little about their effort and about Lea Mills and the support his mother and fellow Brookridge residents have given them. They sign them "Grandma Maxine and Grandpa Ed."

When letters and e-mails of gratitude from troops come, many are addressed to "Grandma Maxine and Grandpa Ed."

One handwritten letter on notebook paper from a member of the 101st Army Airborne Division looks like a summer camp dispatch and almost as matter-of-factly talks about "our primary mission ... to drive up and down the major roads in our area searching for roadside bombs."

The soldier, stationed in Tikrit, Iraq, said he relished passing out the drink mixes, washcloths and calendars, and vowed to drop off school supplies to a local school.

In an e-mail sent earlier this month, a female Army sergeant in Afghanistan gushed over body sprays.

"They will be used," she said. "Us ladies over here still like to be ladies but supplies in the small store we have are always few or not at all."

An Army staff sergeant, also in Afghanistan, sent an e-mail on Christmas morning describing his stint as Santa.

The sergeant's unit is camped on a mountaintop, with a town blanketed in snow in the valley below. He'd stuffed soldiers' stockings hung around camp full of candy and other treats sent by the Kolbes.

"A smile can be seen when a soldier steps out of their hut to see the holiday cheer has followed us here," the sergeant wrote. "So, through the cups of hot cocoa and chocolate chip cookies we can suffer the thought of being away from family and thanks to you it has been a lot easier."

Patience In Line

At the post office on Thursday, a line began to form as a clerk helped the Kolbes with their 10 packages.

That happens a lot, but most customers deduce what the couple is there for, so few seem to get annoyed, Maxine said.

In fact, not long before Christmas, the Kolbes were in the middle of mailing a round of packages at the Brooksville post office when the clerk's computer stopped working, Maxine recalled.

The place was packed. A few minutes later, a woman being helped by the other clerk took two of the Kolbes' packages and paid for them.

Another woman did the same, and before the couple left, a third handed the Kolbes $20 to use for postage.

"It brought tears to my eyes," Maxine said.

To find out more about Ed and Maxine Kolbe's effort, call (352) 597-3296. The address for the Lea's Prayers and Postage Fund is P.O. Box 9000, Masaryktown FL 34604.

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