In honor of Memorial day and to pay tribute to the men and women who serve our country, we head to the Lone Star State to spotlight the Texas Bombers organization which does something fantastic to honor those in the military who have fallen in the line of duty.

Last fall, we did a spotlight on the Bombers’ organization and I was impressed then with Scott Smith, the head of the program and the Gold team coach, whose “day job”  has been serving in the army for over 20 years.

Smith came up the idea of putting the names of those fallen in battle on the Bomber jerseys and, taking it a step further, assigned each player the responsibility of researching the background and life of the soldier.

“The players had their eyes opened and it made this seem so much more real learning who the person was, if he or she was married and details about their past,” the coach explains.

“They would come up to me and say, ‘He was a college football player’ or ‘she was married with two kids.’ It was a real growing experience for them.”

As the 23-team Bomber organization stretches out over Texas and parts of Louisiana, the idea is to match a player with a fallen soldier from her area.  A military database is used to locate names and in some cases Bomber players have found soldiers with some type of connection.

Some, for example, may have attended the current player’s high school.  In one case, a Bomber player came to wear the name of a cousin lost in battle.

The Bomber players wear their jersey all year and at the end of the season donate it to the family of the fallen soldier at a 900-person banquet.

Certainly, the program has touched the hearts of many.

Smith first outfitted his team with the symbolic jersey at last fall’s Ronald McDonald tournament in Texas and it had a strong impact from the first moment the players walked onto the field.

“Mother’s came up to us crying and asking if we had certain soldiers on our jerseys,” he remembers.  “We were very touched.”

Smith thought a good name for the jersey initiative would be “For the Fallen,” but found out the name was already in use.

He decided to call the group and to his surprise found out that “4 The Fallen” already had softball ties, although it was in slowpitch.

The Bomber’s leader asked if his program could join and today is the fastpitch arm of the organization whose stated mission is “Empowering families of the fallen and wounded service members and police officers, while shining a promotional light for all Americans awareness of these member’s sacrifices.”

The Bombers have their other jerseys still but Smith says teams are increasing choosing to go with the military ones.

“We have coaches and players who’ll play all day and then go home and wash the jersey so they can wear it the next day,” he laughs.

Look for the program to get bigger and, hopefully, draw more attention to 4-TheFallen.org and the opportunities to help the families of those who’ve lost loved ones in combat.

Eventually, though, Smith would like to see the concept end.

“We appreciate the opportunity to honor those soldiers who are gone,” he concludes, “but hope one day we run out of names to put on the jerseys.”