Thanks for the ping Patty. The 10th Mountain Division is based at Fort Drum, NY which is about an hour or so north of me. When I was back in Rochester recently taking care of my sister, I ran into a member of the 10th Mtn. Division while making a run to the bank. I thanked him profusely for his service and told him that we are all praying for our troops. He and his wife are both career Army. Both have been in Iraq. He’s an MP, and has been doing special recruiting duty recently, but will be going back overseas, this time to Afghanistan. They have two children...a boy and a girl. I told him about Free Republic, and about the Merry Band of Patriots who have been sending packages to the troops. He said that the soldiers really appreciate what the folks back home have been doing for them. He said the one thing the troops need to know is that the people back home haven’t forgotten them. I wished him and his family well, told them to stay safe and that I’d be praying for them all. It was a very uplifting experience for me, and I get all choked up just talking about it.
If we hadn’t lost kattracks, we probably would have adopted the 2/10th MTN DIV at Baghdad.
We send care packages to a unit of the 10th Mountain in 2001 while they were still at Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo before they first went to Afghanistan.