SpringfieldNewsSun.com

BEAVERCREEK — It's Sunday morning and Marine Corps Reserve Gunnery Sgt. Ron King is making the rounds to area stores picking up donated toys.

The 39-year-old military policeman — back from his third tour in Iraq — pulls into the parking lot of Toys R Us.

He empties about $500 in bills and change from a Toys for Tots collection box inside the store as employees wheel out carts containing four large boxes stuffed with toys.

"We have 8,000 kids this year," King said of the needy children in the Dayton area whose families signed up for toys for Christmas.

"You don't realize how many kids until you start seeing," he said, as his son and two daughters helped him load the toys into the military van as they have done in years past.

King, a postal carrier in Miamisburg, had been the Dayton-based reserve unit's lead staff member overseeing its signature program for about five years. His latest tour of duty in Iraq, however, kept him from being involved in this year's planning process — and away from his family again.

He knows that was challenging for his three kids, who first said goodbye to him after the U.S. invasion in 2003. They watched him return to Iraq in 2004, then head off again last New Year's Day.

"They've gone from 'Daddy's leaving. He's going away' and not really comprehending what I'm going to do, to my son watching CNN," he said.

> Learn how you can send holiday greetings to our troops overseas