3/23/02
'Foxhole buddies' sending packages to troops
By Victoria Carlborg
Staff Writer
The San Diego Union-Tribune
CAMP PENDLETON — Al Renteria remembers what it was like to sleep in a foxhole far away from home. Mel Epstein has never slept in such a place. Nevertheless, Renteria calls Epstein his foxhole buddy.
Renteria was in the Marine Corps for 26 years. Epstein has been in the marketing business and has never served in the military. The two of them have put their know-how together for a maneuver called Operation Interdependence™.
The project is a civilian-to-military delivery system® with the cooperation of Camp Pendleton service members, Renteria said.
Sponsors will have a direct link their unit leader and will make sure each person in the 40- to 50-member unit receives a quart- sized Ziploc care package. The program will also connect sponsors with other donors who have goods to send but who do not have the resources to sponsor an entire unit. Renteria takes the packages to be inspected at Camp Pendleton.
Operation Interdependence™ is operated by the Tri-City Council of the Navy League of the United States, a 100-year-old nonprofit civilian group that supports American sea services.
"I never thought that bubble gum and a Kit Kat would make a Marine so happy," Epstein said.
The Ziploc baggies are also a highly prized commodity while troops and sailors are deployed, Renteria said. Marines reuse these bags in a multitude of ways, from keeping their T-shirts dry to keeping photos of loved ones safe.
April Prencipe, a senior at San Pasqual High School in Escondido, is one of the coordinators of the project. With the help of other Interact service club members at her school, Prencipe collected quarters from students that totaled $600 in just a few months. The money was used to purchase items such as lip balm and sunflower seeds for the care packages.
Some of the items in the bags are donated, such as playing cards from a local casino. Other items are hand-written letters from schoolchildren around the country and Prencipe's schoolmates.
"We want them to open the boxes, shove the bags into the guys' and girls' pockets and go," Prencipe said.
Renteria said the idea of Operation Interdependence™ is not to weigh down the troops' 70-pound packs with frivolous items or increase the workload of the service members who mail and distribute the care packages.
"We want minimum disruption to military operations and training procedures," he said.
And that's where Renteria's foxhole buddy has learned a lot.
"I want to hurry up and do everything," Epstein said. "Al has taught me that to everything in the military, there is an organized and systematic way to do things."
Like the military methodology, the process of getting this project to run like clockwork is deliberate and organized, Epstein said. Renteria hopes to take the project beyond Camp Pendleton- based troops.
Renteria, a retired Marine Corps warrant officer and president- elect of the Navy League's Tri-City Council, started Operation Interdependence™ a month before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He wants this project to go on as long as troops from Camp Pendleton deploy, long after the war is over.
The group is being careful not to exploit what Renteria calls false American patriotism.
"It shouldn't be construed of as taking advantage of a bad situation, 9/11," Epstein said. "We will want to help our military for a long, long time."
For more information or to help with Operation Interdependence™, contact Renteria at (760) 468-1315 or oi@arrenteria.com. However, the program cannot accept handmade or homemade items because of safety and security concerns.
Do you have a story idea for Camp Pendleton? Contact Victoria Carlborg at (760) 476-8214 or victoria.carlborg@uniontrib.com. For special events, please alert us at least four weeks in advance. We work ahead!