Make a Grown Man Cry: Greet the Troops on May 20

For several years, TIAA has been among the many Dallas-area volunteer organizations that periodically go to DFW Airport to help greet the troops.

Join us on May 20 to see if our involvement evokes responses like the following letter published in the March 29 Dallas Morning News.

       "Welcome home" — never have two words meant so much as they did when I returned home to the U.S. recently after serving the last six months in Afghanistan.
       Some 200 of my comrades in arms and I were welcomed at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport by complete strangers with handshakes, hugs and claps that made this 19-year service member weep like a child who had found his family after a long absence.
       Thank you to these Texans who truly made me feel welcome in their home. It is so good to be back on American soil. And while I will be heading back in two short weeks, I look forward to my next trip through Texas, because I now know that when I come home for good, even the welcome home celebrations are bigger in Texas.
       Thank you for making my first memory back here so memorable.

Nico Melendez, Lake Elsinore, CA

The next TIAA Greet the Troops event is May 20. Texas Instruments provides the bus, so our only cost is for our brunch — usually at IHOP on the way back to Texins.

Join us in welcoming these armed forces personnel back to America. The troops are currently scheduled to arrive about 8 a.m. on Thursday, May 20, so our bus will leave the Texins Activity Center parking lot at 7 a.m. Volunteers need to arrive at 6:45 a.m.

After greeting the troops and eating brunch, we should arrive back at Texins about noon. If you have a maroon TIAA T-shirt, please wear it.

Be sure to register by calling Jessica Stewart at 214-567-8444 by May 13, so we can inform you if the arrival time of the plane — and therefore the departure time of our bus — changes.