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Happy Veterans Day to all who have served! We want to thank the thousands of people who nominated veterans for our annual giveaway of a year's supply of cheese. If there was a way to award all of these deserving individuals, we would. Thank you all so much for sharing your stories!
We're proud to announce this year's winner: Monica Roth, a US Navy veteran from California.
Her sister Deb submitted the nomination along with this story:
“I’d like to nominate my big sister, Monica Roth, for your Veterans Day Cheese of the Month Club Giveaway.
She was active duty in the US Navy. She even received the title of Honor Recruit for her division in Basic Training. She received an honorable discharge in 1999.
My sister was tough, kind, and always went above and beyond to help others. She went through Boot Camp and her language school with a big smile. Her Recruit Division Commander mentioned her smiles to our parents at graduation. He said he’d never seen anyone like that. Everyone else was miserable in the heat during a summer at Great Lakes, but she’s smiling, even while doing pushups. At her language school she was stopped by one of the SEALs and he asked her if she was a happy person by nature, because he always saw her smiling. She told him that she could be in pain and she’d still smile because it helped others to smile back. And when you see everyone smiling at you, you can’t help but feel good, so the smiles just keep coming, like a positive feedback loop. He said, “You’re dangerous!” and laughed. He also gave her a thumbs up when all the guys around her were dropping like flies while they competed doing pushups during PT, and she kept going.
A funny story from her time in service: while waiting to transfer from language school, she was working as an office assistant for one of the chiefs of one of the divisions. As new sailors arrived from Boot Camp and got assigned to this chief’s division, my sister noticed that there were many sailors whose first names could be shortened to “Chris.” She started placing all the “Chrises” into one section of this chief’s division. Christopher’s, Christines, Christians, Kristens, etc…. If they could be called “Chris” she grouped them all together. None of them were aware of this at the time, because they all only used last names with each other. Once the chief realized what was happening, she laughed and played along. “Oh look! Another Chris. I know just where to place you.” It was like the Sorting Hat in Harry Potter way before the first book was even written.
My sister would love to win a year’s supply of cheese, I just know it. She is fun, funny, and has kind of been down from some health issues lately due to a recent diagnosis of an autoimmune condition. She was forced into early retirement from her job as a nurse in a behavioral health unit at her local hospital. That was her dream job. She loved providing care for anyone who suffered from a mental health crisis, and was particularly fond of her active duty military and veteran patients. She was the warm hug you needed during a hard time, nothing like Nurse Ratched. I think if she won your cheese, it would really lift up her spirits during her hard time. It would be like a gift from home as she grew up in Minnesota where her family lives. Your cheese would be the best medicine for her. And it would keep her smiling."
Thank you Deb for you nomination, and to Monica and all who have given their lives to service. Wishing all of you peace and love on this Veterans Day.
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