My daughter Ava has a project in her kindergarten class called Flat Stanley. They take this little paper guy called Flat Stanley and color him and send him somewhere far away to get his picture taken. When my son Benjamin (now in the fourth grade) was in kindergarten, we sent his to a cousin of mine who lives in Las Vegas. Flat Stanley went out on the Strip, hit some slot machines and played some blackjack.
But Benjamin was kindergarten well before Operation Jack, so I didn’t know nearly as many people as I do now. I was thinking of various places I could have sent Ava’s Flat Stanley — Alaska, Maine, Miami, the Midwest — but then I realized I made a connection last year with U.S. Army Major John Atilano, who’s currently deployed to Afghanistan. I’ve chatted via email and Twitter with John a bit over the past six months and he’s a great guy.