Nineteen months in Vietnam with the Navy Seabees left Camarillo resident Dan Thaxton with a lot of memories. Most of all, however, the experience left him with a desire for service.

"I've always been interested in the military," he said. "Whatever I can do to support our troops, I want to do."

After four years in the Navy, Thaxton went on to start a family and raised three children with his wife, Brenda. He worked as a carpenter, spending the last five years before his retirement helping build CSU Channel Islands.

It wasn't until last October, however, that Thaxton got a chance to get more involved with the military again when an item in the newspaper caught his attention.

"They were collecting DVDs and videos for the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq," Thaxton said. He'd stumbled across a program called Operation DVD, a campaign formed to help support American troops in the war against terrorism.

Organized in late 2006, and with support from Hollywood stars, Operation DVD is now a nationwide organization focused on providing entertainment to U.S. military personnel deployed in hostile environments.

According to its Web site, http://www.operationDVD.net, the most common remark made by troops in both Afghanistan and Iraq is "how boring it is." Soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines spend many of their off-hours watching movies and programs on video.

Thaxton felt called to become more involved.

"I've sent 49 pounds worth of videos so far," he said. "I've been getting the word out in any way I can, and I've gotten a lot of responses."

One local business that agreed to set up collection boxes was Blockbuster in both the Arneill Road and Mission Oaks Boulevard sites in Camarillo.

"I thought it was perfect for us," said Matt Gransee, assistant manager of the Arneill Road store. "We're getting lots of people who buy videos and in some cases drop them right in the (Operation DVD) box."

Blockbuster was about to start its own program to provide a similar service to the troops, he said.

"He beat us by one day," said Gransee, "and his box is more full than ours. He's winning," Gransee added with a laugh.

Thaxton also has placed collection boxes at City Hall, the Camarillo City Library and B & B hardware store on Mobil Avenue.

"The city has been great to us, putting the box right in the foyer and even putting our call for DVDs on the local (community access TV) channel," Thaxton said.

"Dan's been a great customer for years, and we wanted to help," said Randy Collins, owner and manager of B & B, who also offered to ship the donated items to Operation DVD at no cost.

"We wanted to do what we can to help the troops, and we weren't getting the number of donations others were getting," Collins said. "I guess people weren't thinking of a hardware store as a natural drop-off point for videos."

"It took me a while to get it rolling here in Camarillo," Thaxton said, "but in the last month, it's really gotten busy."

Since its inception, Operation DVD has provided more than 700,000 videos for U.S. troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said.