The American Legion's Operation Comfort Warriors, or OCW, program is another example of soldiers taking care of soldiers.

Since December 2008, the American Legion family has raised more than $570,000 for this effort, which has significantly improved the quality of life for wounded military men and women who are recovering in hospital settings and warrior transition units. Included in this amount is a $250,000 grant awarded by Pepsi Cola after OCW garnered the most votes in Pepsi's Refresh Everything project.

"The Legion came in first in the voting," said John Raughter, communications director for the American Legion, during a telephone interview. "The competition is online, and we won out over 750 other charities."

The Pepsi Refresh Project looks for people, businesses and nonprofit organizations with ideas that will have a positive impact on people and their communities. Over 1,000 ideas are received monthly, and visitors to the site vote on the most worthy proposals.

Winners receive amounts ranging from $5,000 to $250,000.  More information about the grants can be found at www.refresheverything.com.

"The program certainly has allowed us to keep providing services to our wounded warriors," continued Raughter.

To that end, American Legion staff members recently visited Joint Base Lewis-McChord in an OCW program distribution effort and presented a check for approximately $29,000 to the Warrior Transition Battalion.

The money will be used to purchase two electronic kiosks for the WTB.  They will serve as one-stop shops for servicemembers and staff to learn about and sign up for events, programs and clinics.

The kiosks also will list job announcements, a directory and provide local community information.

"While we currently offer a wide variety of resources for our soldiers spanning several areas of their care and transition," wrote Suzanne Ovel, WTB's public affairs specialist in an e-mail, "these kiosks will allow us for the first time to consolidate many of these resources."

This marks the second time that the OCW program has provided support to JBLM Main, which was given biofeedback equipment by the American Legion about a year and a half ago.  The devices aid in the recovery of post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury victims.

"The kiosks are just one more way for us to help our fellow soldiers," said Bob Wallace, executive director of the Legion in Washington state.

For more information about the American Legion's efforts to help wounded warriors, visit www.legion.org/troops.