Chocolate for the Troops

[darrels joy]

Published on Wednesday, July 7, 2004

Chocolate for the Troops
By JESSICA DELOS REYES
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

Marlene Miller thinks the best way to servicemen or women's hearts is through their stomachs.

So she's chipping in for Uncle Sam by sending M&M's candies to troops overseas.

The 65-year-old retired Union Gap woman conjured up the sweet idea after meeting a National Guardsman on a flight from Seattle to Yakima.

"I noticed this man in cammies and the whole bit, and he got on the same shuttle to Yakima on emergency leave," Miller says. "He talked about Iraq and said the one thing they missed from home was chocolate because it melts. So I thought 'chocolate for the troops' and the only one I could come up with was M&M's."

But even the candy that "melts in your mouth, not in your hand" is fallible in Baghdad, where temperatures approach 125 in July ? about 26 degrees warmer than the average human mouth.

"But they don't melt like candy bars," Miller insists.

So about a month ago, she began rallying her own troops for her confectionery cause. She enlisted the assistance of Veterans of Foreign Wars, grocery stores and the local National Guard office, which has offered to receive the donations.

The trade graphics department at Perry Technical Institute pitched the idea to students, who came up with 15 potential poster designs ? the winner was two M&Ms, one carrying an American flag, the other saying "We melt in your mouth, not in the sand."

She hopes to send the M&M's ? only plain or peanut variety, please ? as soon as possible after the drive's closing date of July 30. Both of Miller's children served in the military, so she knows that even adult service members would appreciate a taste of home.

"It's just kind of a fun thing," Miller says. "Anything I can do to help them out."

JEFF HALLER/Yakima Herald-Republic
Staff Sgt. James Kane, a local recruiter, and Marlene Miller of Union Gap are surrounded by boxes of donated M&M's at the Army National Guard recruiting office in Yakima on Tuesday. Miller, while talking with a serviceman on an airport shuttle recently, decided to start an effort to supply troops overseas with the candy after he said one thing they miss is chocolate. Miller said they would accept donations for about three weeks before shipping them over.