Honoring Our Heroes: Military Families

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #HonoringOurHeroes #CollectiveBias

My sisters and I live a very peaceful life, a life that is safe and we never have to worry about waking up to some of the horrors that happen around the world every night. A lot of that safety is thanks to military families and the service men and women who do so much for this country and everyone living in it. We grew up as a military family and we know first hand what it is like to have a parent who is absent anywhere from a few months to a few years. We grew up moving from one station to another and knowing that at any moment another deployment could separate us all.

I think that a lot of times we don't realize just how much military families do for the rest of us. Giving up a parent/s for months or years at a time is very hard. Being born when your dad is on deployment, like my sister China was, and hearing the stories from mom about how she had to drive herself to the emergency room to have her because there was no one else to take her. Or not knowing whether your parent is alive for months at a time, this was back before the internet, and sleeping with the phone next to your ear for fear of missing a call. We were pretty lucky when you come to think of it and we know it, because our dad came back in one piece every time.

Then there was the time that we got stationed in Hawaii and we got to spend three of the most amazing years living on that beautiful island getting to know every inch of it and its people. This was the night of our arrival in Oahu, I was only one at the time and those three years were some of the best of my life. Again, we were lucky to have gotten stationed together and at such an amazing place. Today I want to talk about Honoring Our Heroes, the military personnel of the United States and their families.

Behind every military man and woman there is a family who is home waiting for their arrival and struggling day-day without them.

You too can help honor our heroes by purchasing something for your home that you already buy. Show your appreciation to our active duty service members and our nation's 23 million veterans by shopping for Kleenex® Brand at Kroger and Kroger's family of stores. I purchased KLEENEX® BUNDLE PACK® Facial Tissues and KLEENEX® BUNDLE PACK® Tissues which we always have in our living areas.

Buy one Kleenex® Facial Tissue 4-pack bundle from your local Food 4 Less and other Kroger stores and Kleenex® Brand will donate one pocket pack to the USO.

Giveaway: There will also be 13 giveaways, one from each Kroger family of stores, with a prize valued at up to $100. You can enter the giveaway by sharing your “Hero Story” on social media and tagging it with the hashtag #HonoringOurHeroes.

More than 2 million Americans serve on active duty or in the reserves today, the Kroger Co. Family of Stores and the USO stand behind our nation’s military community. Honoring Our Heroes is a way of saying thank you to our active duty service members and our nation's 23 million veterans. Kroger stores have raised more than $14 million since 2010 to help support USO programs - the largest cumulative gift to the USO in its nearly 75 year history.

Our service members and their families sacrifice so much for our country, we could never do enough to thank them fully. But shopping for items that I already purchase for my home and shopping at stores like Food 4 Less and Ralph's that do so much for them, is one of the ways that I try to give back to active duty personnel and their families. Our dad retired years ago, but so many families out there are still fighting that daily fight and doing for us. They are truly heroes.