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BY AMY CALDER
Staff Writer 06/09/2008

Staff Writer

Tom Hall's great love of books and passion for helping others are making life much happier for troops serving in Iraq.

Hall, an Albion native now living in Pownal, launched an effort last year to send books to Iraq so that soldiers will have something interesting to do in their down time. Since then, tens of thousands of books have reached the hands of military men and women as a result of Hall's good deeds.

"We've got to help these people," Hall said. "We've got to help them keep the focus and this is one way of helping them get through a very long and difficult tour in a place a long way from home."

A 1975 Lawrence High School graduate, Hall is a research engineer for Alion Science & Technology, a defense contractor headquartered in Washington, D.C.

He is based at Bath Iron Works, where Alion works primarily for the U.S. Navy. After learning that troops wanted books to read, Hall went online and found an organization called "Operation Paperback" and rallied co-workers to donate books. Operation Paperback distributes names of service men and women throughout the world and what types of books they want to read.

The Alion office signed on and the effort spread to the community and beyond, with a television station publicizing it. Eventually, people from all over the state were donating books to Hall's office, which catalogs and ships the books overseas. A library in Bethel donated more than 1,000 books to the effort and Hall has driven hundreds of miles to pick up such donations.

"He's probably shipped out, by mail, over 3,000 pounds -- well over $1,500 worth of costs; it's all been donated," said Lee Fournier, Alion's assistant vice president/division manager in Bath.

Alion recognized Hall recently for his efforts, sending him and his wife to Virginia to accept the company's 2008 CEO Award for Community Service and Volunteerism. Fournier, Hall's supervisor, nominated him for the award.

His nomination letter said Hall is passionate about the effort and volunteers a lot of time to it, giving up lunch breaks and working after hours and on weekends.

Fournier accompanied Hall to the awards event in Virginia.

"I'm proud of Tom," he said. "It was pretty special; it was an emotional time."

Hall's love of books started when he was a boy growing up in rural Albion, where his family still lives, and which he visits as often as he can. Hall says he particularly likes reading books about American history.

At Albion Public Library, Librarian Martha Doore said someone notified the library about Hall's efforts and when patrons heard about it, they started donating books. Last year, the small, all-volunteer library boxed up three shipments of books for Hall's project.

"It's wonderful to have a part in providing something from home for the troops -- men and women," Doore said Friday.

She said she has known Hall since he was a little boy and he is well-known and respected in Albion.

"Tom is certainly to be commended for this most selfless work with Operation Paperback," she said. "It must be time-consuming and take a lot of effort on his part, so we're very proud to think an Albion native is giving back in such a lovely way."

Fournier said Hall, a Maine Maritime graduate, has worked for Alion about two years and in that time, has shown a great passion for what he does.

"He sailed as a merchant marine officer, he was an officer in the Navy Reserves and an officer at Maine Yankee," Fournier said. "He did extremely well in all those capacities. He's been doing a tremendous job in the destroyer engineering capacity."

Fournier said the whole office at Alion is involved in the book effort but also sends holiday gifts to the troops to be given to both them and to orphanages and hospitals.

Hall said the office receives numerous letters of thanks from troops.

"The letters we get are both heartwarming and heartbreaking," he said.

One letter, from SFC Michael R. Bowers, of the U.S. Army, says one of the hardest things to deal with in Iraq is boredom during down time, and the books help ease that loneliness.

"This war is like none I have ever seen before; as I have mentioned, when we are not performing our mission, we are left with a lot of time on our hands, especially at night. Again, I can not thank you enough for all that you do to support us."

Andrea Hoshmand, vice president of Operation Paperback, said she corresponds regularly with Hall and her organization appreciates his hard work.

"He's just been very professional, very good, very prompt with his shipments," she said.

Operation Paperback, founded in 1999, has more than 6,000 volunteers nationwide who have sent more than 800,000 books to troops, Hoshmand said.

Hall welcomes anyone interested in donating to his effort to contact him at thall@alio nscience.com.

Amy Calder -- 861-9247

acalder@centralmaine.com

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