Marine’s Email Asking for Supplies Leads to Lifeline for Troops
ABC News
Angel Canales
July 14, 2014
U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsmen attached to an infantry unit in Sangin, Afghanistan receiving necessary medical supplies. TroopsDirect
CHULA VISTA, Calif. – When Aaron Negherbon opened his email and read a message from a longtime friend and U.S. Marine Corps captain in Afghanistan requesting medical supplies, he took action immediately.
The email read: “Major firefight last night. Medical supplies destroyed or depleted. Resupply could take 6 weeks considering where we are relative to the supply depot. Stethoscopes, gauze, bacitracin and hydro cortisone are the big needs. Any way you can help? We’ll take anything.”
He sent the package to his friend who at the time was leading a unit with 150 marines. “I came to find out that service members were not issued these essential items,” says the 40-year-old Northern California native.
That was the first time Negherbon ever sent a care package to anyone. “As patriotic as I am and was, I just never thought to do it,” he says. That email touched off a process that would lead him to reinvent himself and touch the lives of thousands of service members.
His friend’s response prompted Negherbon to take action on a larger scale to help other service members who needed supplies. “We started to supply this unit with all items that they were asking for. Other commanders were hearing what we were doing and took notice and started requesting items,” he says.
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