Profiles of American Service: Shauna Fleming

Written by Janet Holsinger, History Associates Incorporated

“Why not shoot for a million?”

15-year old Shauna Fleming, DOD photo, http://www.defenselink.mil

In response to her father’s challenge, high school freshman Shauna Fleming started a campaign in 2004 to collect and distribute one million letters and emails of gratitude and appreciation to America’s military forces.  With approval from her principal, Greg Pinick, Shauna made “A Million Thanks” into a school-wide service project.  As the morale-boosting letters poured in, the teen continued to promote her campaign by teaming up with NASCAR driver Matt Kenseth in California and country music superstar John Michael Montgomery, with whom she did more than 70 radio and television interviews.  Actor Gary Sinise, star of CSI: NY and co-founder of Operation Iraqi Children, also helped Shauna spread the word through television interviews.

Six months later after beginning her ambitious campaign, Shauna presented to President Bush the one-millionth thank you letter, a handmade card from a high school student in St. Charles, Missouri.  With her original goal reached, Shauna’s next target upped the number to 1.4 million thank you letters – one for each member of the U.S. active duty military.  After reaching this second milestone in November 2005, she launched the “2.6 in 2006” letter-writing campaign, representative of the total number of people in the armed forces, including the National Guard and Reserve.

When the Pentagon honored Shauna and her school in 2007, Greg Pinick explained that Shauna had always humbly gone about her task, and that for her, “It’s always been about thanking men and women who are laying their lives down every day.”

Today, A Million Thanks is still going strong.  Shauna and A Million Thanks are also launching a new charity organization, Wounded Soldiers Wish, a non-profit designed to help wounded soldiers receive the things they need most.  For more information about A Million Thanks and Wounded Soldiers Wish, visit http://www.amillionthanks.org/. 

Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff U. S. Army Command Sgt. Maj. William J. Gainey hangs a copy of the 2.6 millionth letter to the troops in his office at the Pentagon, Feb. 1, 2007. DOD photo, http://www.defenselink.mil/PhotoEssays/photoessay.aspx?ID=198&Page=3&Count=5