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.
Thanks for the updates Patty ... also you should be getting something in the mail soon from me
Sorry about being late ... some unexpected things going on at home
Wonderful! Thanks for the contribution pledge. I've got all these 9/11 films and Westerns that I got for the troops and you and Kitty Mittens and MJY1288 and his friends are going to help pay for them.
We just had to replace our TV, and I had a backlog of Westerns to screen to see if any were good enough to get more of for other bases.
Winchester 73 (Jimmy Stewart, Rock Hudson) B&W made the cut, as did Cowboy (Glenn Ford, Jack Lemmon). Nevada Smith (Steve McQueen) was close, but had a stupid ending so will only go to MI at Kirkuk, although Suzanne Pleshette (from Bob Newhart show) was a hoot to watch in a serious role.
My husband headed for the hills by the time I slipped in the third Western yesterday. He liked Winchester 73 also.
I've got some VHS Westerns that aren't out in DVD's, so I'm going to have to send to a place which still has a functioning VCR player. The sand plays havoc with tapes and VCR's.
THANKS again!
I'll let you know when it arrives.
Are you interested in running another Christmas project for one of our adopted units this year?
So far, I've signed up Nina0113 to handle Bagram.
Personal Bookmark/Reminder Bump.
Three pieces of news.
1. Email from Bagram (Afghanistan):
Dear Patty,
The packages that you sent did come here. I just got back from JBAD so I just saw them.
I will be putting them on Jingle trucks so that the teams in the areas where there are not any PXs can have them.
They really enjoy the candy like the popcicles [Tootsie Pops] because they can give them to the kids around here.
I took alot of pictures on my trip and I will send you some soon so you can see them. I am getting a cable so I can download them to the computer.
I can not tell you how much we appreciate the stuff that you guys send.
Thanks again
E****
[Some of these boxes were mailed by mathluv and nina0113 and I'm not sure that the contents of their packages have all been posted. Will double check that soon.]
2. bjcintennessee just mailed out 50 cooling neck scarves she made with water absorbent crystals to Baghdad for the Engineers when they are out laboring in the sun. Big applause of thanks for our troop supporter in tennessee!
3. My husband and I recommend the movie The Great Raid. Shows our soldiers in a good light about rescuing our POW's in the Philippines toward the end of WWII just before the Japanese were planning to kill them. It has limited distribution and will probably not be in theatres long, so go soon, if you can. Good flick for a change.
Thanks for the great updates! I'm sooooooooooooo glad the guys like the Harry Potter beans -- my son's recommendation turned out to be 'right on'!!
Last October I had the very good fortune to hear one of the POW's from that camp in the Phillipines give a presentation on the camp, the people and the rescue. Very moving and so interesting. Unbelievable conditions that they lived in and the constant threats they lived under.
That particular day our Ladies Guild at church were writing Christmas notes to the troops and he and his wife joined us with long, encouraging notes.
I sent some of the Harry Potter jelly beans to my husband's grandson once, and his mother wasn't crazy about them. LOL!
However, I figured someone would find them fun when I saw them on your list.
I haven't tried them myself. When I turned 50 some years back I gave myself a pass on riding any more roller coasters (to be a good sport) and eating any more obnoxious stuff (to be polite).
Would you be available in October and November to take charge of Christmas for one of our units? Finding out what they'd like sent, and making sure you and your Santa's helpers get the stuff out by the end of November?
Would you like to be on our ping list to follow what is going out and news, letters, and pictures we get back?
The post after your bookmark has an email from Bagram, Afghanistan.
They had some real footage of the POW's coming home at the end of the movie, The Great Raid. Was your gentleman in any of the footage?
That is so incredible, to have the chance to see someone and hear them that has been through such an experience.
Copies of the July and August Newsletters of our adopted psyops unit in Baghdad were dropped in my email box by our secret agent.
Here are some excerpts:
From the July Newsletter:
We've passed the one month mark, and celebrated with a 4th of July BBQ at the headquarters. The building was festooned with Independence Day decorations sent to us by the very Merry Band of Patriots. Thank you so much, Patricia. [same picture of group we posted on thread is here in their newsletter]
We've adapted to the heat, but the continuing dust storms are another matter. Weird Al, the hippy dippy Air Force weatherman, claims the dust will stop blowing by mid-month. He did not say which mid-month...
The product development detachment completed its first satellite television commercial at the end of June. The commercial, which encourages the Iraqis to vote during the October Constitutional Referendum, will air...on Iraq's premier television network, Al Iraqiya.
From the August Newsletter:
Well, I guess Weird Al was right, but he was off by two weeks. The sand storms ended at the end of July, and we're now waiting for hotter weather. Nobody even breaks a sweat anymore at 120F, so we're ready. Just bring it on!
Our benefactors, Patricia & The Merry Band of Patriots, were once again more than generous by sending plenty of popcorn and DVD movies. Chaplain **** has a much greater movie selection to pick from when he hosts Chaplain's Movie Night each week. His last venue, the Princess Bride, only drew four soldiers. But SSG *** swears that it's much more violent than the title suggests. We're waiting anxiously for Princess Bride Redux.
The Task Force is focused on preparing for the release of the Iraqi Constitution ... Much of our work during the two months that follow will be to establish a secure environment in which the Iraqis can vote. It should be a very auspicious event. The first Constitution in Iraq in the modern era!
BUMP
Are those car magazines piling up in your garage again?
Want to send a boxful to the hospital in Germany that treats our wounded?
Hopefully you won't run into that wacko on your next trip.
I haven't seen the movie yet, so I don't know. This gentleman was a young boy during his confinement. His brother, sister and parents were also POW's.
A lot of his presentation was information, clippings, photos that his parents put together while they were POW's. Really interesting stuff, and he had so many stories about the kids - having been one himself - and what happened to them and how they survived.
The movie, The Great Raid, is about the rescue of 500 survivors of the Bataan Death March that were POW's in the Philippines.
They weren't civilians. They were soldiers that stayed and fought for some time after the Japanese invaded the Philippines, but finally surrendered after running out of food.
The POW camp that this gentleman and his family were in was filled with American civilians who had lived/worked in the Philipines for many, may years.
He tells a powerful story about their rescue by the soldiers and about the privation, lack of sanitation, diseases, and loss of life.
When everyone was talking about The Great Raid rescue, I thought they meant the rescue of these civilians. Ha!
Our next door neighbor was a survivor of the Bataan Death March. He was born on Labor Day and passed away on the 4th of July. He belonged to a group of survivors of the Bataan Death March that used to meet each year at the top of Mt. Diablo.
Email from our last contact at BAGRAM. He and the 13th Psyops Battalion are now back on U.S. soil.
Hey Patty,
...we all made home safe and sound. We are actually back with our families now.
We got the cookies [for the 4th of July], but unfortunetly I didn't get any pictures.
No one did anything really untill after dark when a bunch of the girls took some chem lights (light sticks more or less) and were throwing them in the air to make up for no fire works. Then a fight broke out where everyone was throwing them at each other.
We really appreciate everything that you and the rest of the Merry band of patriots did for us. Thanks again for everything.
Mark
I'd be happy to send fireworks, but they're on the forbidden list. As are cigarettes, where are they getting them?
;) Where there's a will, there's a way.
Beats me where they get their cigarettes. I had 3 uncles die due to smoking...emphysema, heart, and lung cancer. So I'm not into sending anyone cigarettes.
Yep, the closest I came to fireworks was the lightup American flag pinwheels. We don't want the supply plane to blow up from a shipment of fireworks.
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