Posted on 02/19/2005 11:19:29 AM PST by Kitten Festival
Sergeant Vaughn got a care package today. It’s been almost forty years since I got my last one, a case of twenty-four #2½ cans of sliced peaches from my father. Memory fails me now, but I don’t believe I ever asked before he died what it cost to mail that monster, but it must have been a pretty hefty hit in the wallet for a lifelong blue-collar worker. I had happened to mention in one of my rare letters home from Vietnam that canned, sliced peaches were my favorite item in our C Rations even if they were twenty years old. We could date them because the small cigarette packs enclosed with the rations were frequently Lucky Strikes in the old green packages that were phased out in the forties.
In any event, at mail call back in the rear area, the company clerk yells out, “Sergeant Vaughn! Care package!” and I responded with a somewhat surprised “Yo!” Stepping front and center I stared with momentary incomprehension at the large, heavily taped and badly battered, cardboard box at the clerk’s feet. He made no move to pick it up and hand it to me; he just grinned and said, “That heavy sucker’s all yours from here on, Sarge.” As I bent to pick it up, I noticed the silvery glint of the top of a can and a bit of green label through one of the torn corners and awareness dawned: son of a gun, my Old Man had come through for me! In spades!
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
As I quote what was said in a letter that made my day....
"that last package was AWESOME!" I'm glad to have made *his* day a bit better.
Folks should send more packages to the troops. It's important to them.
PING to a great story!
I thought packages from home were AWESOME when I got them while I was in the Army and all my time served was here in the States. I imagine it has to be a hundred times more AWESOME when stationed in a war zone.
Nice going! My daughter sent a Care package to a soldier and now you just convinced me to call her and ask if I can get some things for her to send again.
BTTT
That's a really nice idea.
Last year my family and I all put in some money together and my mom sent one large care package.
There were basic toiletries, gum, hard candy, granola bars, socks, white undershirts and things like that. I think anything sent would be appreciated by our soldiers.
It wasn't much, but it was just our small way of saying "thank you" for their service and that they're in our prayers here at home.
My daughter's care package was similar and she added some car magazines (like Car and Driver) and a copy of Esquire. Soldiers like to keep up on fashion. LOL I remember waking up one day in the barracks and saying "Hmmmmmmm, I wonder if green goes with green?" or, "Maybe I'll wear Green today".
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