"When Shon left for bootcamp, Ashtyn cried
for days."

Read a mom's story.

My children are 20, 18, 15, and 4. All the older children are boys and the 4-year old is a girl. As you can imagine Ashtyn is very much protected.

My 18 -year old son Shon has always been the closest to Ashtyn. So when Shon left for bootcamp on November 1st, 2020, Ashtyn cried for days. She refused to sleep in her bed because she was convinced there were monsters under her bed. She was absolutely devastated that she couldn't talk to her brother. She spent most nights crying herself to sleep which left me sleepless as well. I saw the ZZZ Bears and decided to order one for Ashtyn for Christmas.

At this point, I was feeling helpless and hopeless.

Everything changed on Christmas morning when I gave her the bear as a gift… from Shon. She ripped it open and yelled to the sky "Thank you Shon Shon! I love you Shon Shon! I love my ZZZ Bear so much!"

The storybook empowered her. By screaming “Ten Hut!” and putting her bear on patrol, she feels safer and feels like her brother is on patrol as well. Last Friday, we received the bear’s rank, name tag, dog tags, vest, and yes the mask so he can now go outside (lol). Once again, when she opened the accessories she saw it and screamed "thank you Shon" so this mother is also screaming, “Thank You ZZZ Bears!” for preserving the precious connection between these two children, thank you for saving bed time, and thank you for seeing us through some very difficult times.  

Crystal Dobbs
Military mom