Some of you may remember back in December of 2006; a young Marine, David Strathman, requested a guitar for Christmas, while he was in Iraq.  David's parents are friends with former Cheap Trick bassist Jon Brant. Jon and his wife Claire asked me if I could locate a guitar and help them send it to Iraq. I went to my friend Bruce Gordon of SIR-Music Rental, and Bruce sold me a great, used guitar for a great price.

The guitar was actually used by Mick Jagger when Bruce supplied band gear for a Rolling Stones tour.

I went to Jeff at Consolidated Music of Barrington and Jeff donated stings, picks, a chord book, capo, and a tuner.

Jon and Claire Brant shipped the guitar, and the guitar arrived in Iraq on Christmas Eve 2006. We enclosed a note to David asking him to keep the guitar in Iraq and pass it forward, to the next rockin'  Marine, once his deployment ended.

    
    David Strathman, USMC in Iraq with the guitar. Christmas - 2006

Below is an awesome note I received today ...

Dear Joe,

My name is David Sirovica and I am currently deployed to Al-Asad, Iraq.

I have a guitar that you sent to David Strathman in 2006. David and I served together in 2007 and he had this guitar back then. The memories that I have of David and this guitar are priceless and I was quite surprised to see it again on my second tour over here. I would just like to thank you (Jon Brant, Bruce Gordon and Consolidated Music)for your gift. The guitar not only helps pass the time but it is a morale booster, not only for me, but for my Troops as well. If you could possibly send us some extra strings for it, that would be greatly appreciated as the ones on it now are flat to say the least.

Thank you again for your generosity and kindness.

God bless and Semper Fidelis

David Sirovica, Cpl, USMC

Well, you can bet a few sets of strings will be sent ASAP! I love this never-ending story.

God bless out Troops!

 

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