This has been a long time in the works, but we finally were able to pull it all together and get it squared away!
The Thanksgiving season is a time for us to focus on the blessings in our lives. Through the support and collaboration of Trick2G and his army of streamers (aptly named the 2GArmy), Trick and his crew decided to hold the first ever 24-hour charity livestream for Stack-Up directly on top of Thanksgiving Day, raising several thousand dollars for Stack-Up which was the push that helped get us off the ground!
Because we could tell immediately the 2GArmy was going to do such an amazing job of raising donations to help us support the troops, we wanted to be able to work with the 2GArmy community and give something back as a way of saying “thank you for believing in us”. During the livestream, we set up a landing page on our website asking for 2GArmy fans who had military service under their belt to write to us about their time and experience so we could give a little something back to one deserving veteran.
The winner, SGT Eddie Ward, was from the 101st Airborne Division and severely injured just weeks before he was to return home from Afghanistan. He retold his story for us:
“We were on a hill top pulling overwatch for 1st platoon. We brought the 60 (60mm mortar) out for conventional setup after EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal) swept the area with detectors. The hill was clear. I had two soldiers pull security further down the hill. After a few hours, it looked like they were falling asleep, so I went down there to see what’s up, and it ended up being the sun was just rising and they had no dark or amber eye protection (sunglasses). So I sent them up the hill to rest for a bit, and I took a knee right right where one of my soldiers had been sitting…apparently on top of an old Russian land mine. I was a bigger guy at the time, so apparently my weight was heavy enough to set it off. That’s why the one sitting right on it still has his butt, but at the same time my size also kept me alive and only major damage was a single limb loss, quite a few burns, and shrapnel. I soaked most of the blast from my buddy who was with me. He got peppered by some of my bone fragments though.”
Eddie actually had some folks in his unit doing video as well, and they put together this video of his being rushed into Kandahar Air Field medical to try to recover his leg.
So, after the holidays, we worked with the 2GArmy and thanks to their contacts at CyberPower PC, they were able to outfit Eddie with a top of the line Gamer Xtreme 3000 gaming rig, complete with laser engraving of the 2GArmy logo!
SGT Ward received his new rig and said:
“Thanks to the 2g Army and Stack-Up for the sweet rig, and CyberPower PC for building it. Can’t ask for anything better than a beast computer, awesome graphics and that 60 fps. Really appreciate it.”
Being able to show our gratitude to service men and women through events such as this is a big part of why Stack Up exists. We are thankful for supporters like everyone over at the 2GArmy and others who help us in our mission of helping veterans through our passion of gaming.