As a young man, I wanted to follow my father, uncles, and other family and friends into the United States Armed Forces. However, being diagnosed with type-1 diabetes at the age of thirteen meant that I would never be a part of any military branch. Instead, I would watch other men and women serve our country during many operations including Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom. While I have always admired and respected soldiers for their courage to protect our nation, I wanted to demonstrate my appreciation in a more profound way. It was not until I began attending college to obtain a Web development degree that I found a way to express my sincere gratitude.

During my freshman year at Baker College, I was continually developing Web sites to complete assigned projects for various classes. While these Web sites fulfilled the project requirements and provided a grade, they offered little more than the lessons being taught. It was then that I began to work on a project that would utilize these lessons and offer a much more satisfying reward. Honor Texas Troops was soon to be born.

My first objective was to determine if other Web sites provided the type of soldier recognition and acknowledgement that I wanted to display at Honor Texas Troops. While many sites did offer recognition and gratitude on various levels, none provided the opportunity for soldiers or family and friends of a soldier to state their story and accomplishments. Therefore, I set a goal to provide a Web site that would recognize each soldier individually. Each soldier from any branch of service would be honored, whether living or deceased, so long as they were born in Texas or have served at a Texas military facility.

With a goal in place, it was time to settle on a name. After researching available domain names, I settled on the name that simply stated everything about the Web site. Honor Texas Troops is dedicated to and honors the troops of Texas. I registered the domain name and uploaded the initial design.

The Web site was born and I immediately began looking for soldiers to honor. I began spreading the word about Honor Texas Troops at school, at work, and during social gatherings. Several associates and family members quickly submitted their profile to be honored and it was not long before a few newspapers gained interest in my endeavor. The articles provided a terrific spark, but the attention was short lived. It was time to rethink the goals in order to continue the recognition of these courageous soldiers.

Honor Texas Troops will always be a work in progress during my attempt to create more recognition for the men and women protecting our freedom. As a result, discussion forums are the newest addition to the site. Allowing people to communicate with each other and discuss topics of interest may provide recuring visits and more attention to the soldiers honor here.

I certainly hope that you enjoy your visit to Honor Texas Troops and share this Web site with your family and friends. More importantly, I hope that you support all the men and women of the United States Military.

Sincerely,