It's own bag may work well, but this gizmo gets a vacuum seal on mostly everything. Great for shipping things!
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.
Itemized list of what just was mailed to Kirkuk.
Box 1
28 bags Act II KettleCorn microwave popcorn
1 – 8 oz. bag Spanish peanuts*
1- 4 oz. bag mixed nuts*
Weekly Standard’s issue on Afghanistan
Box 2
28 bags Act II Butterlover’s microwave popcorn
1 – 8 oz bag sunflower seed kernels*
1- 8 oz. bag Spanish peanuts*
Commemorative magazine on Pope John Paul II
Box 3
24 bags popcorn (16 Light Butter, 8 Old-Fashioned)
2 small boxes of 5 Slim Jims (spicy, smoky)*
2 packs of 4 small (7x5in) American flags
Box 4
DVD: The Mummy (Brandon Fraiser)
5 boxes of 3 packs of 6 yellow marshmallow chicks (jtill sent earlier, but I wasn’t able to get out for Easter)
1-10 oz box of chicken flavored crackers*
2 -5 oz. bags of cheddar cheese crackers*
3 bags 1.4 oz. ground Folger’s coffee for 1 pot each*
2 – 3.5 oz. snack packs tuna salad and crackers*
Thank You card made by Mr and Mrs Swat Team
Box 5
DVD: Chisum (John Wayne)
2 magazines (StreetTrucks and Time’s issue on Anne Coulter)
15 peanut butter Power Bars
2 – 12.2 oz. boxes Little Debbie oatmeal crème pies*
1 pad 100 sheets writing paper
1 bag 3.25 oz Sugar Free coffee nips
1 – 7 oz. bag buttery toffee peanuts*
1 – 7 oz. box strawberry twists*
1 – 8.8 box Hot Tomale (cinnamon candies)*
1 – 4 oz. bag mixed nuts*
Box 6
28 bags Butter popcorn
10 oz bag Hawaiian brand Kona Classic ground coffee
Box 7
2 DVD’s
Once Upon a Time in the West (Henry Fonda)
Proof of Life (Russell Crowe, Meg Ryan)
10 oz bag of Kona Classic ground coffee
2 boxes 12 Power Bars (peanut butter and chocolate)
11 oatmeal raisin Power Bars
1 plastic cup drip coffee maker for single mug
2 boxes 40 filters for single cup coffee maker
6 large packs Carefree sugarless gum (original bubblegum flavor)
Box 8
Box of 2 John Wayne DVD movies (McLintock! and Angel and the Badman)
Popular Mechanic magazine (America 2005)
3 boxes 12 Power Bars (1 oatmeal raisin and 2 chocolate)
11 oatmeal raisin Power Bars
2 bags 10.5 oz Kona Classic ground coffee
1 box 40 filters to make single cup coffee
3 large packs Carefree sugarless gum (original bubblegum flavor)
Box 9
4 plastic cans Albertson’s sugared drink mix (8 qt.) (lemonade, grape, cherry, punch)*
2 boxes of 80 small envelops*
2 packs 4 pens*
2 puzzle books*
1 - 6 oz. bag pecans
1 pack of 2 strips of beef jerky*
Box 10
8 DVD movies
Rio Grande (John Wayne)
High Noon (Gary Cooper)
Lonesome Dove (several DVD’s for the miniseries) (Robert Duval)
Rockwell (Karl Malone) – low budget Mormon Western, not bad, with Karl in supporting role as a black cowboy – kinda cool performance
Last Samurai (Tom Cruise)
Ransom (Mel Gibson)
Harold and Kumar go to White Castle [too crude, which negates some zany humor]
Without a Paddle (Burt Reynolds) [starts slow, gets progressively zanier and funnier]
1 box 100 Slim Jims (small spicy, smoky jerked sausage)
1 box 12 Power Bars (chocolate)
6 Power Bars (4 peanut butter, 2 oatmeal raisin)
5 large packs Carefree sugarless gum (spearmint)
*items donated by Ros42
BUMP
Hi!
You must live here.
You always are right there, faithfully bumping the troop support thread.
Thank you!
BUMP!!!
Wow, that's a lot of stuff that will surely put smiles on our soldier's faces! Thanks for all your hard work!
Thanks for the updates Patty
It's own bag may work well, but this gizmo gets a vacuum seal on mostly everything. Great for shipping things!
If you want to send me a vacuum sealer to use, I'd be very happy to use it.
I put the bags of coffee in slidder ziplock bags. ...mostly because you could smell the coffee; and it smelled so good I was afraid someone would steal the box before it got to the soldiers.
FINALLY got to access the funds you put in my PayPal account almost a year ago. Soldiers at Kirkuk wanted some Fourth of July decorations, so I bid on them at eBay and paid with the PayPal account.
Receipt
Ship To: Merry Band of Patriots
Item # Item Title Qty Price Subtotal
6527370722 Lot of 4th of July Decorations Stars Banners USA 1 $10.49 USD $10.49 USD
Shipping & Handling
(includes any seller handling fees) : $7.70 USD
Shipping Insurance (optional): --
Sales tax (8.250% in CA) : $0.87 USD
Total: $19.06 USD
Pres. Bush is the keynote speaker at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner, held annually in the Grand Ballroom of the Washington Hilton.
Pres. Bush speaks at 10:05pm ET.
[Arrivals, milling around, dinner, awards presentations]SATURDAY STARTING AT 6PM ET [on Cspan].
Deb, Mike has burned a half dozen DVD copies of the White House Correspondence dinner speeches, and is mailing them out to several bases and sending me several to include in new boxes to other bases.
If you videotaped the Dinner, hold off on copying it to DVD for now. Thank you for being back up in case Mike's copies didn't turn out.
That sure was a fun event with Laura and Cedric ribbing George and Condi. And Cedric took time to send a thank you to the troops, which is great!
Cheers!
Got a thank you letter in the mail from V.M. at Kirkuk saying the headlamp had arrived. It came in an envelop with a big blue Operation Iraqi Freedom watermark on it.
I told him in a note the headlamp came from you in the box I sent it in, but also included a SAE for any other requests his unit had.
"Please pass on a "HOOAH" to your beautiful friend and our appreciation for their support."
See, he called you "beautiful!"
Cheers!
Patty
Notice of thank you for a nice lady in Valencia who is sending some Fourth of July decorations for the troops, plus money for the postage to mail them out.
Thank you, mshoponline!
Airborne's nephew reports that a large batch of headlamps arrived in Mosul. (our local optometrist ordered 56)
He writes in his email:
"I just wanted to let you know that the headlamps made it here just the other day and I am ensuring that they get distrobuted out to the soldiers. We send our many thanks for everything that you have done for us. The headlamps were sent to CPT. *** and I got word and talked to him and the 1SG about getting them passed out to the soldiers."
I'm currently buying Fourth of July decorations for the troops on eBay. These are going out with snacks for the Fourth.
Anyone who wants to help, can see what I've purchased on my account there (under patriciaruth), and can either donate to my Merry Band of Patriots Paypal account (FReep me for particulars) or can buy some items themselves locally or through eBay and we'll see they get to the troops.
An easy way to locate this thread for the latest news is to search under Google for Merry Band of Patriots. This thread heads the list.
I'll post later tonight a little audit of what we've received in donations and what we've bought and sent this year through April 30. I won't ping for it. If interested just come back to the thread.
BUMP!
Merry Band of Patriots. 1st Semester financial report.
In January and February of 2005
asgardshill, jtill, peach, SENClander, airborne, SwatTeam, jtill, Kitty Mittens, DrDeb, Texan4W, Diamondhead, SwatTeam, 7.62 x 51mm, Mo1, Kathy in Alaska sent a total of $755.
$882 worth of goods was sent to Stryker at Mosul (postage $59.00) and
$200 worth of goods to MI at Kirkuk (postage $10.90)
arjay bought a DVD/VHS player for Stryker at Mosul and MJY1288 helped with postage and remailing.
______
In March and April of 2005
Spanaway Lori, Kitty Mittens, SW6906, kattracks, Daybreakcoming, jtill, Ros42, norton, Swat Team, Just mythoughts, Kitty Mittens, and airborne sent a total of $920
$211.50 worth of goods was sent by me to Stryker at Mosul (postage $19.10) and I also mailed about $51.50 worth of goods donated by Ros42 (postage $9.90)
$566 worth of goods was sent by me to MI at Kirkuk (about $68 of these goods were donated by Ros42 and jtill) (postage $103.80)
Mailed coffee that jtill donated to my brother who mailed it to Mosul (thought this former soldier now civilian contractor was going to Baghdad but he actually at Camp Courage up at Mosul)
Ordered $515 (24) headlamps for Stryker which they received
Ordered $327.20 (15) headlamps for MI at Kirkuk, should be arriving any time
Arranged for a donor to order $1202.32 (56) headlamps for C company of Stryker, mailed week of April 28th, and airborne’s nephew reports they were just received.
Mailed 2 headlamps to a couple individual soldiers at Mosul—one confirmed received
Texan4W donated 6 cans of 6 cups Crystal Lite lemonade mix (some went to Kirkuk, some to Mosul)
Jtill donated Easter marshmallow chicks, books, and coffee (books will be going to Afghanistan)
Ros42 donated many snack items, stationery, socks, etc and lots of kapok.
I ordered from Amazon another DVD player for Kirkuk ($94.99-$75 worth of Amazon gift certificates) and MJY1288 received it and mailed it.
BUMP!!!
God bless you all for your generosity!
Hello all,
We got a surprise visit on Friday from the Marine we adopted last year! He is from Nashville and just had a couple of hours to visit with us. We were so excited to see him in person and to give him a big hug! He is so sweet! We feel so honored to count him as a friend.
I don't know if you guys remember me mentioning this before, but he was stationed in Fallujah and his fiance broke up with him while he was over there. They also lost one of their guys, and that hit him hard. Please pray for him as he continues to deal with some difficult feelings. Thanks!
God bless this young man!!
If he needs anything, let us know.
Thanks for passing on the news about this great visit!
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