Students at Grove Hall’s Mother Caroline Academy who sent letters of encouragement to troops in Afghanistan received a personal thank you from a returning veteran this week.

Marine Corps Lieutenant Nick Francona sat with a group of middle schoolers on Tuesday to personally thank students for taking part in the Dover-based Hugs for Heroes program and to discuss his experience during a seven-month tour in a Marine sniper unit.

Letters from the Caroline Academy students were sent to Francona’s platoon as part of a series of care packages, while others were saved as a welcome home greeting for the returning troops. Francona, the 26-year-old son of former Red Sox manager Terry Francona, said he admired the Academy’s core values of compassion and leadership, adding that they shared many similarities to the values he had picked up while training and overseas.

“When you sent notes to my platoon, you were showing your compassion,” Francona said. “We were going through some tough times and it was great to know that people back home were thinking about all of us.”

Francona added that the values students learned in the classroom would give them a leg up when they leave school and enter the real world.

“I wasn’t exposed to the importance of leadership and the value of that kind of stuff until I was twenty-three or twenty-four. I’d implore you all to take those lessons to heart because they can really help you in the future,” Francona said.

Students also had a chance to look at a series of photos Francona had taken during his deployment. For many it was the first time they had ever seen images of the a war that began before many in attendance had ever set foot inside a school.

There were many questions about what it was like to serve in Afghanistan, ranging from the weather (described as “crazy hot,”) the type of animals Francona encountered (which included wild dogs “about as big as bulls,”) and what life is like for families living in a war zone.

After the meet and greet, Francona commended students for their range of questions and added to the Christmas spirit at the Blue Hill Avenue campus by handing out candy canes.

Hugs for Heroes was founded in 2004 by Mireille Manzone, who began the project at 16 after learning soldiers can go weeks or months without hearing back from home. 

“I heard mail day was one of the lonliest days of the week,” Manzone said. “It broke my little 16-year-old heart.”

Since 2004, the program has sent more than 10 tons of care packages and letters to servicemembers abroad in packages large enough to cover entire units at a time. For more information or to contribute, go to hugsforheroes.org.