U.S. Army recognizes Pleasanton woman for 20 years of supporting troops

Pleasanton resident Azadeh Aryana still remembers when one of her two sons decided to join the U.S. Army in 2003.

“The first deployment to Afghanistan … I was scared,” Aryana told the Weekly. “I come from that side of the world. I didn’t want my son to be going there.”

Aryana, who immigrated to America from Iran in 1978, said that when her son joined, she almost immediately started receiving emails for Pleasanton Military Families (PMF), a support group for families of service members, which had just started back up after being inactive for some time.

“I was getting emails, but I didn’t know who they were and my son said, ‘Well, Mom … just go and see what’s going on'” she said. “I went to a meeting with them and they were so comforting to me. It was just amazing.”

Now, 20 years later, she is still with the group serving as the shipping and handling coordinator for the organization’s pack-out where volunteers assemble care packages (with food, toiletries, games and more) to mail to U.S. troops overseas.

And because of her work in sending tens of thousands of servicewomen and servicemen these care packages with custom letters over the past two decades, Aryana was also recently inducted as an honorary member of the Special Forces Regiment by the United States Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School.

“There were only maybe four women before me — civilians — that have received this, so it was an honor for me to be there,” Aryana said regarding the ceremony, which was held April 20 at the JFK Auditorium in Fort Liberty, N.C. (formerly Fort Bragg).

“(I had) people thanking me, people who are the generals of the Army and the defense secretary for our country … It was a great feeling,” she added.

Following the beginning of a revolution in Iran, Aryana moved to the U.S. and met up with her sister and parents who had already immigrated here. Having left her ex-husband at the time due to him being in the Iranian Army, Aryana arrived in the Bay Area with one son, one on the way and no English-speaking skills.

So she did what she knew best without having any college education: She worked in whatever she could — which ended up being a cleaning lady at a Carl’s Jr. in east side San Jose where she eventually worked her way up to be a manager at the store while also learning English.

“From my perspective, I think she’s achieved a lot more than I have because I had all the (educational) background that I needed, and she did it in spite of not having it,” said Afsaneh Laidlaw, Aryana’s sister.

After 11 years at the fast-food restaurant, Aryana decided it was time for a change so she worked in the security business for several years before opening her own security business in order to put her sons through school.

She first got involved with PMF after her son graduated from Amador Valley High School and told her that he wanted to join the Army. At first, she told him no as she had wanted him to get a college degree first — which he did.

After earning his psychology degree, enlisting in the Army and getting deployed to Afghanistan 21 years ago, Aryana said that not only did PMF provide her with a strong support community while her son was gone, it gave her a newfound sense of purpose, which was sending those care packages to the thousands of troops overseas — all of who she saw as her own kids.

“These boxes mean so much when we send them to (the troops),” she said. “We get many thank-you letters from them … and they appreciate what they get.”

“It just absolutely melts my heart because these are my kids, all of them, and I couldn’t have done anything really without the help of Pleasanton Military Families,” she added.

And when the news of Aryana receiving recognition from the U.S. Army found its way back to the other PMF members, many of them said they were not surprised.

“I thought it was extremely well-deserved,” Pat Frizzell, who helped restart the support group alongside PMF founder Chris Miller in 2003, told the Weekly.

Frizzell, whose son was in the Marine Corps and was deployed to Iraq in 2003, said that through her many roles at PMF — including formerly as president and co-chair of the organization — she has seen Aryana continuously give her all to the care package efforts.

The pack-outs — which happen near Easter, Fourth of July and Christmas — had originally started out of garages and backyards but eventually grew so big that they needed more space.

Now, the group works out of the Pleasanton Veterans Memorial Building where they sort, package and prepare hundreds of boxes with all kinds of items. The last pack-out happened just last Friday where over 150 volunteers filled the main hall inside the building to help package and send 179 care packages to troops in places like South Korea, Colombia, Iraq, Qatar and Japan.

But even with the hundreds of volunteers helping write cards and move boxes, Frizzell said Aryana is still there because, like herself, they both see the organization as a family and do the work because they care about all the troops and their families.

“She does what she does out of love, it’s a passion for her,” Frizzell said. “She never expects or wants any kind of acknowledgement for what she does. It’s just part of who she is.”

Denise Harper, current president of PMF, told the Weekly that she’s also just as proud to hear that Aryana had received the recognition she deserves, especially because of the fact Aryana doesn’t just oversee the shipping of the packages.

“She’s out there not only with our custom forms and taking care of our pack-out — she’s working behind the scenes in knitting caps, beanies during every year she’s been doing this,” Harper said.

“I know that she’s a very shy person and she doesn’t like recognition like this, because she just feels this is her duty to do for our troops, because of what they do for us,” Harper added. “To me, that’s the bottom line of … who (Aryana) is.”

Laidlaw also pointed out that without her nephew, Aryana’s son who is now a command sergeant major in the Special Forces, some of this would have been possible because he helps out with being that source of information as to where the troops are located overseas.

“Because her son knew where people were, and how to contact them … in crazy places, like in the middle of nowhere in Afghanistan, in Syria, in Iraq, I mean, places that it’s extremely difficult to reach, without his help none of this would have been possible,” Laidlaw said.

But at the end of the day, it was thanks to being nominated by those same soldiers and troops, that Aryana was able to be recognized. While she is just happy that her son is safe, she hopes to continue providing for those young soldiers whose families might still be worried as they serve their country overseas.

“Since I joined, I have never left,” she said. “And I will be (with Pleasanton Military Families) as long as they need me because we still have kids in a bunch of places. Even though the war is over, we still have kids that are not with their parents and families.”

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