Right Voices

Merry Christmas: Stranded soldiers get plane tickets home

On Dec. 8, Sgt. Chris Duarte and more than 100 other National Guard members from California were told that “Operation Sleigh Ride,” a military effort to fly them home for a four-day visit beginning Dec. 22, had been canceled. The planes involved were needed for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The soldiers are training before being sent to Iraq and this would be their chance to return home before deployment. About 80 soldiers paid for commercial flights home after hearing the news, shelling out up to $700 per person. Duarte and the others couldn’t afford it.

Enter a group called American Recreational Military Services, a nonprofit run out of the home of a Red Bank woman, Ronnie Micciulla, which came up with $10,000 to buy the plane tickets. “I love all these guys like my own kids,” Micciulla said. “The only Christmas present I wanted was to see them home for Christmas.”

New Jersey 101.5 radio host Mary Walter launched a fund-raising effort to reimburse ARMS, and U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J. chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee helped arrange the purchases from Southwest Airlines.

It was said that after the tickets were delivered that Sgt Chris Durate played Santa Claus by calling out the names and handing a ticket to each soldier so they could be home with their families for Christmas.