CARE PACKAGES for our Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, 2005

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.

We have a really nice email from the Engineers who were in Baghdad that just arrived.

Because they are now home, I am disclosing the unit and some names.

Thanking you all for prayers and good wishes. The treadmill went well today (don't have scan results yet), so I am hopeful that my pains are "just" an ulcer from the new arthritis medicine. Still having some little moments of misery so your prayers and good wishes have been very much appreciated.

Now for the email:

Dr. ***, ** and ** ***,

Aloha from the 411th Engineer Combat Battalion! On behalf of our 600 Army Reservists, I want to thank you again for all the support and prayers you provided to us while we were in Baghdad, Iraq in Operation Iraqi Freedom II. Please share this e-mail to all the Merry Band of Patriot heroes out there.

Three weeks ago, we arrived back in Hawaii where we are undergoing outprocessing to release us from active duty back to our civilian careers. It has been a long, tough year but we have many things to be thankful for - our families, the community support, and our employers. We deployed with soldiers from three Hawaiian Islands (Maui, Oahu, Hawaii), Alaska (Fairbanks and Anchorage), Guam, American Samoa, and 29 other U.S. States. As we outprocess from Hawaii, we are sending our soldiers back home to reunite with their families.

Most of all, I truly believe our work in Iraq will lead to a better Iraq. We were a major part of the Transfer of Sovereignty from the former Coalition Provisional Authority to the Iraqi Interim Government in June 2004, and the first free Iraqi elections on January 30, 2005. We helped reinforce Iraqi police stations and election polling stations which led to a historical election that selected the National Assembly responsible for continuing to form Iraq's new government and constitution. During the course of our deployment, we convoyed over 300 times through central Baghdad. Guardian angels were watching over us - we brought everyone home alive - however four soldiers received Purple Hearts for injuries during enemy contact. Two of them were more seriously injured by a roadside bomb and are continuing to recover at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C. and back here in Hawaii - but alive.

Before we left Baghdad in March 2005, we were replaced by the ***. They are an active duty unit under ***. We turned over all the things you sent to us so that their soldiers could benefit and enjoy during their off-time. Their mailing address is the same as our address when we were there. The battalion commander is ****.

If you have a chance, please visit our Battalion website at http://www.411engineers.us to see all the reunion pictures. Some of the sections are password protected. You'll also see a few pictures of me too.

I don't know if we will ever be able to meet someday, however, if you visit Hawaii in the near future, please send me an e-mail and we'll try to link up.

Again, thank you all to your team of teams - the Merry Band of Patriots!

Respectfully and with Aloha,

Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Wung
U.S. Army Reserves
Commander, 411th Engineer Combat Battalion
"The Hammerhead Battalion"

The soldiers at MI wanted Westerns.

Just bought at Walmart
Once Upon a Time in the West – Henry Fonda
Rio Grande – John Wayne
Lonesome Dove –Robert Duval
High Noon – Gary Cooper
Chisum – John Wayne
McLintock/Angel and the Badman – John Wayne
Rockwell – Karl Malone
The Mummy – Brandon Fraiser (horror comedy, not a Western)
The Last Samurai – Tom Cruise (starts in the West, and has fabulous cinematography, fascinating story, and great action at the end)

Ordering from Amazon and Amazon Marketplace
Red River – John Wayne, Montgomery Cliff
The Magnificent Seven (Special Edition) – Yul Brenner
The Man from Snowy River – Burlinson
Violent Men – Glenn Ford
The Professionals (special edition) – Burt Lancaster
Outland – Sean Connery (a Western in space)
Unforgiven – Clint Eastwood
The Quick and the Dead – Sam Elliott (good rendition of the Louis L'Amour book)

Ordering from Amazon books
Books by Louis L’Amour
Westward the Tide
Fair Blows the Wind
Ride the Dark Trail: The Sacketts (already sent 5 novels in the Sackett saga)
The Quick and the Dead

For Mosul ordering
Gone in 60 seconds DVD (original movie remastered sound)
Gone in 60 Seconds VHS (orginal movie with original sound)
Got already the Gone in 60 Seconds DVD remake (with “Eleanor” and Nicolas Cage, but it wasn't that good, so I went back to the originals)

Also have, not sure who will get them
The Year of Living Dangerously – Mel Gibson
Ransom -- Mel Gibson
Shaft (Samuel Jackson)
Proof of Life – Russell Crowe, Meg Ryan
Sudden Impact – Clint Eastwood
My Cousin Vinny – Marisa Tomei

Our contact at MI unit in Kirkuk just emailed us that a box of movies and books and drink mix that was mailed a couple weeks ago arrived with a thank you.

A bunch more stuff is on the way.

Mailed to MI Kirkuk, April 27, 2005, 10 boxes, insured for $432, postage $93.70
Total of
17 DVD movies
108 bags microwave popcorn
115 Power Bars
110 Slim Jim jerked small sausage
4 bags 10.5 oz Hawaiian ground coffee, 3 bags for 1 pot Folger’s
And a lot of miscellaneous snack items sent by Ros42 and jtill.

AND MJY1288 just mailed off a DVD player for Kirkuk which I had purchased with Amazon gift certificates and had shipped to him. Thank you, Mike!

See next post for detailed list of items just mailed to MI at Kirkuk.

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