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.
They want the headlamps, specifically the one in the ad.
Spanaway Lori and I are now discussing off line how many she wants to get for her guys.
The procedure usually used by our Merry Band of Patriots on this thread and our previous threads is that I credit card the item(s) we are getting for the troops, and people send their contributions to me to help offset my bill when it comes in.
I accept checks, money orders, Walmart shopping cards, Target gift cards, Amazon gift certificates...and cash.
The headlamps will come to me, and I'll mail them directly in flat rate USPS priority boxes to whatever soldier and APO you guys want. The ones our Merry Band of Patriots buy will go to our adopted Stryker company in Mosul.
I've been doing this for almost 4 years now and a lot of people trust me as a result.
Here are some of our old threads:
Christmas cards and letters for our Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan
Care packages and Thank-you Notes for our Troops in Afghanistan
Christmas for our Troops in Kirkuk
WRITE A THANK YOU NOTE TO A SOLDIER IN IRAQ THIS MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND
Here are some old threads we have been involved with in no particular order.
Holiday FReepmail Messages for our Troops needed
News from Kosovo about Care Packages received
Donations for Christmas Presents for our Troops in the Field
Fasting and Prayers for our Military and the suffering People of Iraq
Project Kosovo, Remembering our Forgotten Troops in the FRY
I tried reactivating my Paypal account and it was so screwed up I gave up.
If you all and Spanaway Lori want to get permission from Jim Robinson to have your own fund raiser on your own thread on FreeRepublic, then one of you can do the Paypal thing, which I grant you is a good idea -- it just hasn't worked out for me.
(And I'll probably try again to get it straightened out.)
On this thread, I am putting my name and reputation behind any funds raised, therefore anyone donating using this thread should send the funds to me, because I know I can be trusted to make sure every penny goes to the troops.
However, your recommendation is a really good one, so if I can't get my account up and running again in a timely fashion, I will try to find another trusted member of the Merry Band of Patriots who has a Paypal account and will agree to accept donations and see they get to me.
But first I want to know from Lori if she is willing to financially vouchsafe a certain amount for the headlamps...and how many headlamps she wants to get for her unit in Mosul. (We both have contacts in Mosul.)
After reading about this, I immediately ordered 3 of them for my adopted soldiers. A small price to pay for a little more safety, seems to me. I'm wondering if anyone knows how to send a prepaid card for internet usage to soldiers. I only recently found out that many of them have to pay per hour to use pc's in the internet cafes.
patriciaruth - I am not sure which ad you are talking about, but at any rate, if you are going to buy them then you should probably be the one to communicate with the Petzl company if that is what you want to do to see about a discount or...whatever.
Here is the information I found on the American version of that company.
PETZL America
Freeport Center M-7
PO Box 160447
CLEARFIELD
UT 84016
USA
Tel : (801) 926-1500
Fax : (801) 926-1501
E-mail : info@petzl.com
Web : www.petzl.com
I'm still waiting to hear back from Marty. I'll bet he knows PatriciaRuth's contact. They're both in Mosul. I'm all for sending PatriciaRuth a check. She is a trustworthy soul. Sorry I can't afford to buy many, but if we get a bunch of Freepers to buy even one headlamp, it could really add up!
More headlamps may result if people could simply contribute what they can...essentially buy 1/4 of a headlamp or whatever they can, put that together with what someone else can do etc....
Another good idea. So how do we set up a fundraiser? I'll be happy to send PR a check. Should we do it that way?
Would Jim allow us to do a fundraiser here? Would it be ok with people to send money to PR, and ok with Jim?? Hey I am new at this and I am clueless:)
I linked our old threads above so you could check out that I've been doing the care packages for soldiers thing since early summer of 2001 here on FR. I started calling our informal, volunteer grassroots group of troop supporters the Merry Band of Patriots, but we are not incorporated as an organized charity.
This thread is a continuation of threads going back for some time.
Jim Robinson once sent me a check himself, so I guess he thinks it's okay for me to continue these activities. We've met a few times at the Blackstone and Shaw troop support FReeps in 2001-2 and the FReeper picnic this year, and once at the Air National Guard terminal in Fresno to welcome President Bush in his first months in office when Air Force One flew in and then the president choppered into a national park.
However, these projects have been costly for me this past year as our soldier casualties have mounted. I spent as much out of my own pocket as was sent to me. Kind of a dollar for dollar match. But now I'm trying to pay off my mortgage and can't afford to do this project alone.
If Spanaway Lori is only willing to guarantee one purchase of one headlamp among her circle of friends, then it doesn't look like we are going to get enough takers from her friends to make up a 50 bulk order.
I'll check with the Hobbit Hole and see if they have any interest in putting their bank accounts on the line for our soldiers.
I've spent several thousand dollars of my own money sending care packages to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan this past year.
Have you been doing something yourself? Do you want to join our effort so what you can manage goes into a bigger pool and makes for a bigger bunch of packages?
How are you fixed financially? Can you pledge any of your own funds to this project? Do you know people who are troop supporters who would be willing to help?
My ping list has maybe 150 people on it who have contributed in the past, many of them only able to do prayers and moral support, or write letters, and several dozen who are blessed financially and able to sent money, too, in amounts ranging from $5 to $250, with $25 and $50 being the commonest amounts sent.
I keep a record of all the contributions and all the receipts from stores and the post office, in case anyone is ever interested in auditing them.
But $1400 is a big commitment for bulk ordering at this time for me, as I went into the hole doing the Christmas packages.
I'm mulling about just doing a few at the higher cost, and in a couple months when my bills are paid, doing more.
But first I'll check with the Hobbit Hole.
This is the thread.
Let me know if you know anyone at the Hobbit Hole who would be interested in joining forces to do a bulk order of 50 headlamps for the troops.
My share would go to our adopted company in Stryker brigade at Mosul. I could guarantee to foot the bill for 20 of them.
The particulars are in the posts near the beginning of this thread.
Found this on my state board. You can get the headlamps at this place for 29 dollars. The ones they need!
http://www.northernmountain.com/NMSMain.asp?Option=Welcome
Search on Petzl TacTikka. The TacTikka is the one you want, not just the Tikka. The TacTikka comes in camo and has the red light filter/lens. They are on sale for ~$29 if you sign up for their newsletter (you have to give them your info if you order the lights anyway) and the shipping is free if you spend over $50. I ordered two and the total came to $57.52, no tax, free shipping.
This is something that will make our soldiers lives easier and maybe even save some lives.
patriciaruth - I wouldn't expect anyone, no matter how well healed they are financially or not to go out and buy lamps without having donated funds in hand to do so.
For me, providing financial support right now is difficult. I am unemployed and my husband is disabled, but I am still willing to donate $10. which isn't much I realize but if it is added to what someone else can donate, soon a soldier has a light. We all do what we can.
Seems to me however that the first thing we need to do is come together on a plan. I may be wrong but right now it seems this thing is going in several different directions all at once.
I went ahead and wrote the Petzl company to see what kind of deal they may be willing to do. Can't hurt. Seems to me if you can get them from a supplier for $29 you should be able to get them from the company for less.
I got a response from the Petzl company here in Utah. What I told him was that we had been made aware that our troops were needing lights and we were going to do a fund raiser to purchase them for our troops. I told him the specific model we were interested in and asked if they would be willing to extend a considerable discount plus shipping....here is his reply...I don't know what to respond with, I thought I had already laid it out pretty well:/
Hanna,
Let me know what you have in mind and I can see about working a deal.
Thanks for supporting our troops!
Jon
Jon Rockefeller
Manager - Headlamp Division
Petzl America
• t. 877.807.3805 ext 242
• f. 801.926.1559
• e. jrockefeller@petzl.com
Hanna, you are a GREAT AMERICAN! Thanks for bringing this to our attention in the first place, and then for trying to get a better deal on top of it!
Another response from the Petzl company.
Hanna,
We can’t sell lights below our suggested retail price because we do not want to compete with our dealers, but I will match your funds raised up to $2500 dollars. This will allow you to purchase lights at 50% off retail up to the matched funds price.
Let me know if this works for you,
Jon
I wrote back asking what retail price is since various retailers post different prices. Here is his reply.
TacTikka (either black or camo) $34.95
TacTikka Plus (either black or camo) $42.95
Jon Rockefeller
Manager - Headlamp Division
Petzl America
• t. 877.807.3805 ext 242
• f. 801.926.1559
• e. jrockefeller@petzl.com
I wrote him back and asked the difference in the two. Here is his reply. Btw, I sent him Michael's article in order to explain what/why we were doing.
The light that Michael Yon recommends in the article is actually called the TacTikka Plus. Here is the link to it on our website: http://www.petzl.com/petzl/LampesProduits?MotRecherche=Quick+Search&Langue=en&Gamme=48&Critere=&News=
TacTikka Plus has:
4 LEDs
easy to operate push button sealed switch (important for keeping sand out and easy to operate with gloves on)
tilt
3 brightness settings
TacTikka lamps are:
3 LEDs
sliding on/off switch
tilt
Let me know if you have any other questions,
Jon
Jon Rockefeller
Manager - Headlamp Division
Petzl America
• t. 877.807.3805 ext 242
• f. 801.926.1559
• e. jrockefeller@petzl.com
I asked about shipping......here is his response to that, but I wrote back and asked him to look into it.
Where are you shipping them? If within the US I will pay for the shipping costs. To Iraq….now that is a different story but I can look into it if that will help.
Jon Rockefeller
Manager - Headlamp Division
Petzl America
• t. 877.807.3805 ext 242
• f. 801.926.1559
• e. jrockefeller@petzl.com
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