Holmdel Reaches Out to its Own, Over in Afghanistan

A care package for Petty Officer Douglas Bergen, serving with the Marines in Afghanistan, is growing bigger every day in the Township Clerk’s office.

Cookies, movies, and cards will soon be packed up for delivery to his unit in Marjah, where there is intense fighting.

Bergen, 25, is a former Holmdel High School wrestling co-captain now serving in the Third Battalion, Ninth Marines. He is a Navy Corpsman with the Marine Corps, living with comrades in a tent at a small base in the desert. “If anyone gets hurt or wounded, he’s the first guy that attends to them before they medevac them out,” said his father Rich. 

It was while enrolled at Rutgers University that he felt the pull to join the service, his father said. It may run in the family. Rich Bergen was a Marine Corporal in Vietnam in 1966-67, and his older brother Michael Bergen, 29, served as a 1st Lt. in the Marine Corps and did two tours in Iraq. Another brother, Matthew, 27, is a law enforcement officer.

Douglas Bergen is expected home in July, after eight months in the grueling Afghanistan desert, carrying a 60lb pack, and living in Spartan conditions without Internet, TV or even a phone connection to his mother, Maryanne Bergen, waiting anxiously back home. It is his second tour of duty; not long ago he served five months in Iraq. His service obligation is four years. 

Township Clerk Maureen Doloughty is overseeing the drive, one of many run in Town Hall in recent years. It’s a mission close to her heart, after her own son, Sgt. Sean Shepherd, 29, safely returned home after a year of service with the Marines in Afghanistan. Township staff and the library have donated items to make life a tiny bit easier for the soldiers. Donations have also been gathered in the township for Afghan children.

Holmdel Township is keenly sensitive to remembering servicemen and women. There are many monuments to the fallen outside Town Hall, and every Township Committee meeting begins with the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silence to remember the men and women who served the nation.

Bergen’s father said the soldiers will love the cases of Girl Scout Cookies, donated by Brownie Troop #26. They are also particularly grateful for donations of new socks. “There is no way to wash anything. He’ll wear the socks for a couple of days and throw them away. That’s the easiest thing to do,” he said. 

Also,with temperatures hovering over 100 degrees beginning in May, iced tea powder ranks pretty high. “Powders they can drink, with water, are good. They are supposed to drink a gallon to two gallons a day, and that can be hard. So they like a little sweet iced tea mix. Not the sugar free kind,” he said.