PROMOTIONS

PROMOTIONS
New rank for Mooney grad
Air Force Lt. Col. John S. O'Brien was promoted to his present rank while assigned as chief of wing weapons and tactics for the 111th Fighter Wing in Willow Grove, Pa. Previous assignments include the 25th Fighter Squadron at Osan Air Base, South Korea, and the 81st Fighter Squadron at Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany. He is a graduate of the Air Force Fighter Weapons School, a senior command pilot with some 1,700 hours in the A-10 Warthog and a veteran of combat missions over Serbia and Iraq.
O'Brien, a son of Donald and Mary O'Brien and grandson of Clara Blumetti and the late Paul Blumetti, all of Canfield, is married to the former Colleen Reif of West Chester, Pa. The couple have two children, Aiden and Kayleigh. He is a 1985 graduate of Cardinal Mooney High School and a 1989 graduate of Case Western Reserve University.
MISCELLANEOUS
Items for care packages
The USO of Northern Ohio is seeking items to include in care packages it sends to local service men and women deployed overseas. Since March of 2003, some 40,000 boxes have been sent to troops in the Middle East, Afghanistan, Korea, Kosovo and other remote locations. The care packages include food, hygiene and morale-boosting items that are donated by the public and carefully sorted, packed and shipped by USO volunteers.
The USO, a 501C(3) nonprofit organization with the mission of providing for the recreational, morale and entertainment well-being of the military and their families, is in need of the following items: cans of tuna, fruit snack cups and cans, fruit snacks and raisins, beef jerky, cans of vegetables, cans of soup and stew, disposable cameras, eye drops, cough drops and 2007 calendars.
For a complete list of drop-off sites, visit the USO Web site at www.usocleveland.org http://www.usocleveland.org/ & gt; or call (440) 454-2537.
Items of note for the Military Roundup can be sent to The Vindicator, Regional Desk, P.O. Box 780, Youngstown 44501-0780, or e-mailed to alcorn@vindy.com.