The U.S. military is recognized as one of the best-equipped forces in the world, but, sometimes, troops need supplies faster than the services can send them.
This was the situation Jake Jones said he found himself in while serving in Iraq with the Marines in 2016. Before heading into Mosul to fight the Islamic State, the retired sergeant said, he realized that his unit didn’t have enough rescue kits. It would take too long to get the kits through military supply lines. So, he contacted Troops Direct, a civilian-run group with a unique twist on care packages: It only provides military gear. Within days, the group sent equipment that might have taken months to arrive through government channels.
The Troops Direct shipment included a pulley system that was put to critical use.
“We actually saved a girl’s life with that on that deployment,” Jones told the Washington Examiner. “She was drowning. So, two of the guys jumped into the water — it was a 90-foot jump — and they got her stabilized and kept her above water.” The troops used the pulley system to hoist her out on a spinal board.
The Troops Direct mission began 10 years ago in California, when businessman Aaron Negherbon heard from his old college friend, identified only as Calvin. A Marine Corps captain who was deployed to Afghanistan, Calvin told Negherbon that his unit desperately needed equipment. Negherbon, who was surprised Calvin couldn’t get the equipment through normal channels, purchased and shipped the gear to his friend.
Negherbon, who never served in the military, began helping other troops. He mailed packages filled with tourniquets, safety glasses, gloves, ballistic helmets, and more. In June 2010, Negherbon formed the charity that he now runs full time.
Several other organizations send deployed service members care packages containing items such as toiletries, snacks, or socks. The San Ramon, California-based Troops Direct focuses only on military gear such as body armor plate carriers or parachute rigging equipment.
When asked when he decided to turn his efforts into a charity, Negherbon joked, “When my credit card started getting maxed out.”
“Now, we pretty much go straight to the manufacturer and acquire that same product, but we do it with funds that we raise internally,” he told the Washington Examiner. Sometimes, the manufacturers donate the goods.
Last year, Troops Direct gave approximately $1.2 million worth of equipment to service members. Negherbon, 46, said his group has helped roughly 130,000 troops in 30 countries. The group has sent boots, water filtration units, metal detectors, stretchers, and more, all of which the military supplies, but often slowly.
“It’s not a failure; the military just doesn’t do things rapidly,” an active-duty master sergeant named Jonathan, who asked that his last name be withheld from publication, told the Washington Examiner. “By the time we get the stuff we needed, it’s irrelevant.”
The organization says it does not support war or the politics that surround it. “We are simply about providing for our heroes in an unprecedented manner,” the group states in its entry on the website of the nonprofit assessment organization Charity Navigator.
The group’s effect is difficult to quantify, said the active-duty master sergeant, Jonathan. “People call them care packages, but, in reality, it’s so much more,” he said.
Jones, the retired Marine sergeant, now works for the group that once sent supplies to his unit. He said he remembers the drowning girl who was hoisted to safety via civilian-supplied equipment. Said Jones: “She’s alive today because of Troops Direct.”
