Permission to put them on the inside cover of my books going over?
Posted on 02/19/2005 12:40:42 AM PST by patriciaruth
Time for a new thread!
Our Merry Band of Patriots has seen a psy-ops unit at Bagram, Afghanistan, help educate voters in Afghanistan and come home successfully, while we supported them and special forces in the field by sending over 100 movies and many packages of snacks and toiletries and Hallowe'en candy. A Christmas tree and decorations (Daybreakcoming) and stockings (Ican'tbelieveit) and cards and over 400 candy canes were sent for their follow-on unit, and a box with movies and magazines and misc is just beginning to fill for their next care package. The movies and books we sent previously went into the Special Forces library there.
We've seen Beast Battery at Kirkuk, Iraq, through till their deployment home, sending them over 100 movies and dozens of books and a microwave and DVD/VCR player (from arjay) and many big boxes of snacks. Plus a huge wave of goodies was organized by McLynnan for Christmas in Kirkuk (2 prelit trees, ornaments, Santa suit, many stockings with stuffers, many cards, and a couple thousand candy canes to share out with all the forces there).
We've supported the 411th Engineers at Baghdad in 2004 with about 70 movies and several dozen books, a Playstation 2 and a Nintendo console with a couple dozen games (from asgardshill and ican'tbelieveit), a 4 foot Christmas tree and ornaments and boxes of snacks and many cards and 600 candy canes. In the next couple months we will be bidding them Godspeed as they return to their homebase in Hawaii.
We've sent over 50 movies, a DVD/VCR player (from arjay), and a dozen and a half books to an MI unit near Kirkuk, plus some Christmas decorations and stocking stuffers, and many cards and 156 candy canes. They have mostly left for home now and we just sent a package with more movies to their follow-on unit.
Also we have sent some packages to an Aviation unit at Balad, Iraq and to an Infantry Medics unit, and a small Christmas package each to another AVN unit and an MP unit.
Stryker Infantry company formerly at Fallujah and now at Mosul since November has been the major focus of our care packages these past months. All of Stryker at Mosul has taken fire, and our adopted company has suffered a KIA and some soldiers with severe injuries.
Early on we sent food items (mostly power bars and dried fruit and nuts) then Christmas stockings stuffed with goodies and many cards and 200 candy canes, and since Christmas have begun sending movies. They recently received a DVD/VCR player (from arjay) and with the movies just mailed today their collection will total about 75 movies and a dozen books.
And all this happened because our grassroots volunteer group began forming in the early summer of 2001 to send care packages to Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo, when the 101st Airborne and then the 10th Mountain were there.
The contents of packages just mailed will be listed in post below.
Too much to read. What is it they need?
I'll send a check to help with special project. It might be a couple days before I can but I will get one to you.
We received a nice thank-you certificate from the 92nd yesterday. :-)
It took a little while but I've got a pretty good pile of paperbacks to send - I've culled out things like Robin Cook - always some evil capitalist is the villain, Kurt Vonnegut, some junk - for the most part these are all good reads.
Is there a book rate for packages to Iraq? ;-)
TH54
Books Robert Ludlum 8.5 Dick Francis 2.5 Lawrence Sanders 2.75 Dean Koontz 10.75 James Michner 4.5 John Sandford 2 Stephen King 5.75 John Grisham 3 Carl Hiaasen 2 Sue Grafton 1.5 Sara Paretsky 1.25 Raymond Chandler 1.25 Joseph Waumbaugh 1 Tony Hillerman 1 Michael Crichton 1 SciFi 10.75 Mysteries 6.5 Japan based novels 5 Various Novels 10 Military Novels 5.25 86.25 pounds total
If you send your books by media mail, they will take months to arrive and the APO won't be good anymore.
The best bets are the 5x8x11 flat rate priority boxes.
Call 1-800-527-1950 and order 25 of the boxes delivered to your home for free (lying flat in a compact box). M-F till 5 pm Eastern Time.
You'll need wide clear packing tape to assemble the boxes (Duck is a strong, fairly inexpensive brand) and then they will cost $7.70 per box to mail regardless of weight. But with a bit of juggling you can fit quite a few in one box.
Those look like terrific books. You can send them all to Tal Afar or divide them between Tal Afar, Mosul, Bagram, etc, whatever you want to do.
Try to write down the titles for us so we can keep track of what's gone where.
Keep in touch!
Patty
TH54
I also ordered a package of the 15x12x10 size boxes. They are sent from the PO for free, but they add $3.15 to the cost of the package when mailing. This amount is added to the total when the box is weighed at the PO.
I will be starting the new thread this weekend, and then will post contents of boxes sent today, one to Bagram and one to Coop for the wounded when he next visits Walter Reed.
Meanwhile, we've had 2 emails, one from Tal Afar and one from Mosul.
****
EMAIL from TAL AFAR!
Hey Patty,
I have gotten back to [Tal Afar]** and everyone had a blast with the support that ya'll gave us. We have found an area to store the trees and decorations for next year and all the future decorations like valentines and july 4th will get stored also.
Two packages have shown up today from [kattracks].
Again thanks for the packages and we look forward to passing out more for the new troops that are arriving daily.
**Our contact was on leave for two weeks and stayed with my brother in Texas.
****
EMAIL from STRYKER BRIGADE company at MOSUL!
Dr. Patty -
My platoon just got back from a 9 day rotation down at our combat outpost and lo and behold, all five of your boxes were waiting for us. Thanks again.
Most of the guys have either an Xbox or Playstation2 in their rooms so buying another one won't really be beneficial.
To be honest, I'm not sure what we could really use these days. The weather is still cold, but should start to heat up shortly so I don't think anymore hot chocolate will be needed, however, it really does help out when down at the COP because heat is limited there.
There is a company from our battalion who will be leaving the Mosul area and going to reside in much harsher living conditions than us for the rest of their time in country. I'm trying to get a contact name for you as they will definitely need some support, especially of the little things like Hot Chocolate, drink mixes, etc.
Their quality of life is about to take a turn for the worst. Once I get that, I will pass it along to you all, I'm sure they will be most grateful for the support.
Thank you again to all the MBoP.
LT **
Cost of mailing our flat rate priority boxes just went up to $8.10 a box.
Patty-
Let me know what the company moving out of Mosul would like and I'll help out with that.
Thank you for your service and sacrifice.
From The Merry Band Of Patriots at
FreeRepublic.Com
Let me know what you think?
Bump! TH54 ;-)
Permission to put them on the inside cover of my books going over?
Some of our Merry Band are not at FR, but your label looks wonderful to me.
They're going to want PX items, like deodorant, shaving cream, etc.
They won't have access to much electricity, so I've asked Tunehead54 to divert some of his paperback books to them. And probably other amusements that don't need electricity or batteries would be appreciated.
Decks of cards, poker chips might be a good idea.
It's wonderful all the things people are doing all over the country.
Please let us know any information you get from your soldiers about what they liked most.
Okay. Let me try and get organized and gather some things.
I've been bitten by the Su Doku bug so I'll try and get a couple of books with those puzzles for them.
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