Sending Light Across an Ocean: How Books and Letters Became a Lifeline for Deployed Airmen

Volunteerism often begins with a quiet moment — a request, a need, a calling that reaches your heart at just the right time. For Defeat the Streets founder Deborah Tomasi and her husband, acclaimed writer Peter J. Tomasi, that moment arrived through Operation Paperback, a national nonprofit that sends books and encouragement to active-duty troops and veterans around the world.

As Christmas approached, a deployed squadron overseas reached out with a special request. They were preparing a Christmas Morale Event for several hundred airmen who would be spending the holidays far from home. They asked for paperback books — especially mysteries, suspense, science fiction, and fantasy — along with handwritten letters and small items to include in holiday care packages.

The request was simple, but the meaning was profound: Send us something that feels like home.

Answering the Call With Books, Letters, and Heart

Deborah began assembling a box of books to ship out immediately. But Peter brought a deeply personal element to the effort: he donated several of his own published works, including The Bridge, The Light Brigade, and additional titles from his long career as an international comic and graphic novel writer.

These weren’t just books.
They were gifts of imagination from the person who created them.

As a founder of Ghost Machine — a groundbreaking new media collective of world-renowned comic and graphic novel storytellers — Peter has spent his life building worlds that comfort, challenge, and inspire. Sending those worlds to deployed airmen became a way of offering companionship through story.

Inside each book, he included a handwritten message.

Deborah wrote her own heartfelt letters — notes of gratitude, strength, and holiday warmth for men and women spending Christmas half a world away. She added care items and encouragement, making sure each package carried not just content, but connection.

Why Books Matter — Especially to Those Far From Home

A book is more than pages.
To deployed service members, it is:

• a moment of escape
• a thread back to the world they protect
• a reminder of home
• a companion in isolation
• a spark of imagination in a place where imagination can feel far away

It says, without fanfare:
You are seen. You are valued. You are not forgotten.

For troops who often spend months without personal touches from home, a handwritten letter carries the weight of a thousand unspoken thank-yous.

Service Looks Different for Everyone — And That Is the Beauty

What Deborah and Peter did this quarter is a powerful example of the diversity of volunteerism. While others may serve through hands-on community work, shelter events, fundraising, or local advocacy, their contribution reached across continents.

They served through:

• words
• story
• creativity
• empathy
• personal expression
• and the willingness to give something meaningful from their own lives

Volunteerism doesn’t always look like public service or visible action. Sometimes it looks like a quiet table, a stack of books, a pen, and a heart overflowing with gratitude.

A Culture of Care That Travels Far Beyond Our Streets

Defeat the Streets believes that philanthropy is not defined by scale, visibility, or type.
It is defined by intent — by the instinct to give what you have, from where you are, with love.

Deborah and Peter’s act of volunteerism reflects that truth beautifully:

Service can be global.
Service can be creative.
Service can be personal.
Service can be as simple and profound as sending a story that lights the dark.

This is what it means to build a culture of care.

And this is what it means to unleash your impact.