... one positive thing we can do right now for our troops is send them a Christmas message of support.
I agree. I just opened my restricted ground this weekend for the first time in years to two local Iraq veterans to hunt. They just got back last week. I'm afraid they don't have quite as rosy a picture of Iraq as is routinely parroted here at FR. However, some of you are free to discount this as we have always been somewhat of an isolationist rural enclave, heeding Madison's advice not to seek monsters abroad to slay.
I'm going to talk to another veteran who just got back from his second deployment and see what he thinks.
I decided to work with a local supporter of the troops to help buy nice Christmas stuff for troops from within my own state, hopefully, those from my own area. Websites like
AnySoldier.com are quite good but don't identify troop origins closely enough to know where within your state the troops came from. They list, for instance, five troop units from my state and info about when they went and will return but nothing more. I guess that's for security though. The AnySoldier site also helps by telling about shipping, item restrictions, etc. Worth a read.
Hopefully, we'll see more threads just after Thanksgiving on how to give to our troops at the holidays, a hard time for them being so young and far from home. I would guess that it will take 2-4 weeks for stuff to arrive so we're already getting up against package shipment deadlines.
That's a magnificent gesture opening your property for the vets. They should certainly enjoy hunting almost virgin territory for game.
When I voted for Pres Bush in 2000 - I had the feeling that he would be more of an isolationist than a demo. Then 9/11 happened. A massive attack on our own soil and the thought of an isolationist world turned upside down. So here we are.
Please give your vets a real thanks from the rest of us too.