Mary Conboy is the Gold Star Mother of Adam Conboy, a Marine who was killed 3 years ago in Iraq.  She founded "Operation Bedding" and in those three years that organization has sent over 10 thousand packages containing creature comforts to our heroes overseas.

As the compassionate "mother" that she is, Mary often finds herself acting as a surrogate mother to service men and women coming home who have no families of their own to turn to and who are having readjustment problems.  She was feeling overwhelmed by this and recently asked a friend for help in dealing with it.

Mary and Wayne Lutz, founder of Warriors’ Watch Riders, have come up with a new organization to be called "Big Brothers-In-Arms" http://www.bigbrothersinarms.org/ where we will pair up returning troops with Vietnam and other era veterans to just hang  and shoot the breeze, have a beer or coffee, go fishing or go for a ride, and talk it out. Just so these heroes have someone to look to as a sort of mentor, someone who is older and who has “been there” and understands.

Anyone willing to put his or her name on such a list of possible big brothers should send his name and contact info directly to Wayne at lutz@warriorswatch.org and he'll compile a database.

The second stage will be to make the organization’s presence known to as many troop-support organizations and VA institutions as possible so that they can refer soldiers to us who need a big brother-in-arms.

I became a Big Brother instantly upon hearing of the idea and am asking each of you to do the same.  I personally vouch for the solid cred of both Mary and Wayne so have no fear about signing up.  For those of you who have been on Welcome Home missions or have met this new generation of warrior, you know what it means to them to be “part of the club” to which we belong.  We all say never again will one generation of veteran desert another and this is the perfect way to put words into action.  Thanks much.  Manchu.