07.20.03
Summer Heat Inspires Two to Cool Troops
by Grant McIver (freelance article)

Summer in Phoenix, Arizona is no picnic, but it can't compare with the deserts of Iraq, where temperatures routinely top 130 degrees fahrenheit. But thanks to two Phoenix women and a company named Misty Mate(R), thousands of our troops in Iraq are getting a little relief from the brutal Iraqi summer.

Earlier this spring, Sue McCormick was shopping for a Father's Day gift for her husband, Marine CWO5 Rick Salyers. He had been deployed to Iraq, and when McCormick saw a Misty Mate personal cooling system, she thought it would make a fun gift. The postal gods smiled, and Salyers' present reached him in time, and on Father's Day he phoned McCormick.

"He said I was a genius, and that it worked really, really well," McCormick said. "There was just one problem. He refused to use it because all his Marines didn't have one."

Because of one Marine's leadership, a crusade was born.

On July 3rd, McCormick enlisted the help of Susan Czubek, recently engaged to another Marine warrant officer, CWO4 Ken McAlpine. The two women had only met briefly a few times, but McCormick sensed something in Czubek--"she seemed really nice," McComrick said later.

Together, they created "Cool Our Troops," a non-profit organization whose mission was to send personal misters to every service man and woman in Iraq who needed one--i.e, those troops at the tip of the spear, the ones with no respite from the sizzling climate.

Right from the beginning, Czubek and McCormick began seeing signs of "divine intervention." When McCormick called the IRS to ask about how to get a non-profit tax number, the woman she happened to contact turned out to have a son in the Marines, deployed to Iraq. The tax status was created in record time.

Upon contacting Misty Mate, the two discovered that Steve Utter, the President and CEO of the company, had already sent 1,000 units to troops in Iraq as a personal statement of support for the troops. He agreed to provide the units to McCormick and Czubek at the lowest possible price, so that a ten-dollar donation will provide a Misty Mate for one service person.

The two set up a bank account to receive donations, and a website [see end of story], and began working the phones, seeking both donations and publicity. Within days, the "Cool Our Troops" story was on radio, TV and in newspapers, and donations began coming in. With them came stories that often reduced the two to tears.

Czubek told a story of one donor: "We got a call from an elderly woman with a heavy Europan accent. She was calling to say that she was going to write a check for as much as she could afford. She said that during World War II, she'd been liberated from a concentration camp, and knew firsthand what it meant to be granted her freedom by U.S. troops."

McCormick tells of more "divine intervention." She had dropped by the Misty Mate offices late one afternoon, and purely by chance, "Steve [Utter, CEO] was on the phone with a Marine who rather forcefully questioned whether the misters would reach those who really needed them," she said. It turned out he was in the Phoenix area on leave, and was visiting relatives only a few miles from McCormick's house. When he left to return to his unit prior to deploying to Iraq, he took 1,000 misters with him for his comrades-in-arms (see photo).

In a little over two weeks, McCormick and Czubek have sent more than 3,000 misters to the troops in Iraq. "Our goal is to make sure that every service man or woman who needs one has one," Czubek said. They're trying to send 50,000 misters to Iraq by August 1st of this year.

So, in a time where "supporting out troops" usually means just sporting a bumper sticker, what motivates these women to give up any semblance of a life, get by on a few hours' sleep a night, and spend every second they can to make our troops more comfortable? Sue McCormick put it best: "I just want them [the troops] to know that the people of the United States are behind them, that we support them, and that we're so very proud of them, and this is our small way of showing our gratitude for what they're doing not only for our country, but also for the people of Iraq. They're doing an awesome job."

Check out the "Cool Our Troops" website at: http://www.coolourtroops.com.

If you'd like to make a donation to "Cool Our Troops" and you live in Arizona, donations can be made by cash or check at any Arizona Bank One branch, account #640404737. Donations are tax deductible. The Employer Identification Number (EIN) is 30-0187631. Please make checks payable to "Cool Our Troops."

Out of Arizona, you can mail your donation to:

Bank One
C/O Cool Our Troops
Tempe Town Center
20 E. University Dr.
Tempe, AZ 85281
Account# 640404737

Or use a wire transfer to:

Bank One
Account #640404737
Routing # 122100024

Misty Mate is an Arizona-based company that manufactures personal evaporative cooling systems. Evaporative cooling works by dispersing water in an ultra fine mist over an area, and the resulting instant evaporation drops the air temperature in that area by as much as thirty degrees.

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07.18.03

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE