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Stocking up for the holidays

Camosock attracts military attention

Thursday, Nov. 16, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo Raphael Talisman⁄The Gazette Bob Gilead of Hyattsville, a former Marine, holds up custom-made Christmas stockings he produces at his home.

The gift — a 19-inch-long stocking made of Marine fatigues — was the personalized creation of Bob Gilead.

His daughter Elizabeth Gilead, a U.S. Marine, received the first Camosock, the stocking’s trademark name, while she was stationed in Okinawa, Japan, far away from her family in Hyattsville.

Bob Gilead said making the military-style present made him feel close to his daughter.

‘‘The first Christmas she was away from home I was wandering around the Target in Laurel in November looking at the Christmas stockings. I wondered what it would look like to have stockings made out of the [military] uniform material,” he said. ‘‘I wanted to do something different and special for her.”

It was then that he thought of the Camosock.

Each sock is made of material unique to the branch of military it names, differing slightly from the authentic cloth for national security reasons.

A pocket similar to that of a military uniform, complete with nameplate, is sewn onto the sock, which is also trimmed with red piping. North Carolina-based Lyons Industries for the Blind makes the nameplates.

‘‘It’s a business that’s started and is off the ground,” Gilead said, adding that he has already shipped 2,000 stockings to various retail locations around the country. A Marine gift shop in Okinawa bought 16 cases of the stockings. He is now trying to get Camosocks to the women stationed over Christmas at Parris Island Marine Corps Base in South Carolina.

Gilead said he wanted the stockings manufactured in America. The fabric is supplied by a company in Rhode Island and the socks are put together by a manufacturer in Pennsylvania.

Like his daughter, Gilead, a Hyattsville resident for the past 25 years, served as a Marine from 1963 to 1967.

Gilead said he is donating 10 percent of the net profit of each stocking to the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund, based in California.

The group was founded in 2004 by wives of military men to provide financial and emotional support to Marines injured in combat or training, and other military officers who are directly attached to Marines, said Nancy Walker, the non-profit’s director of community relations and marketing.

‘‘When someone’s loved one is injured like that, you drop everything and go to the hospital,” she said, adding that many injured military personnel are sent to hospitals far from their homes.

‘‘It’s a huge financial toll on the families,” Walker said.

The military subsidizes some travel expenses for families to visit their sick, but often only for immediate family members. This is why the organization has welcomed Gilead’s contribution to the fund.

‘‘We are honored that Mr. Gilead has chosen the Marine Semper Fi Fund,” Walker said. ‘‘It is only because of the support of people like him ... that we are able to continue our mission of assisting those that protect our freedom.

‘‘When we saw [the stockings] we were just like, Oh my Gosh! We have to use these. They are so cute.”

E-mail Sarah Nemeth at snemeth@gazette.net.