Here it is, finally! I'll be adding many posts over the next couple of days to update our activities during the last 3 months.
Believe it or not: a new thread!
Prayer update on daybreakcoming (who has sent a half dozen prelit Christmas trees and ornaments to our units over the last few years). She did well after the first round of chemotherapy, and another round started in January. I haven’t heard since, as my mother is deteriorating and is taking up a lot of my time.
My extended family always wants to send care packages, but we can't always get the name of a contact to send them to. Bless you all for the good things you, and the other FReepers, do for our soldiers!
Thanks so much, Sing!
When I was in Afghanistan the best care packages were homemade cookies and treats. The BX had pretty much everything else we wanted.
BTTT and prayers for your mother and you.
Great work, lady! (et al)
enjoying some food and warm socks and a box of boxes full of goodies...
"home"
5 more months of deployment - Bad guys still there - still bad, but this month will tell if it's going to be as bad as last spring/summer/fall...thankfully, they won't have to do another winter this deployment - but will catch two on the next one. By then, things should've calmed down -
Survivor
Smallville (interrupted, but slowly continuing)
Scrubs (season cut short)
24 looks like it won't be aired this season, but I heard this season was political correctness run amuck, so no great loss.
I got a "return to sender" for Shannon at Bagram PSYOP, so do you have another contact for Bagram?
Thanks again!
An update on a Sky Soldier’s stateside leave:
my grandson, from BATTLE co, 2nd/503rd, in Afghanistan just had his 18 day leave, after 10 months in the Hindu Kush, aka “Taliban Central” =
He was apprehensive over the reception he might receive stateside, due to the cr*p coming out of DC and elsewhere - but he found out that what his ole gramma had assured him was true: America is behind you!
He is, as we “speak” on his way back for 5 more months in ‘The Valley of Fire” -
He has 5 more months there before a years break back at base in Italy =
Praying that by the time Battle Co, is sent back to the Korengal for a second 15 monther that things will have calmed down. ()It seems Gates is considering to cut the deployments down to 12 months - only twice that of other branches. Big of him.
On a positive note: My grandson was greatly heartened and surprised that everywhere he went on his leave (He was was in Texas and California with parents, other grandparents and siblings, ) he continually found people at restaurants, stores, hotels, on the street - letting him know how much they appreciated him and his fellow troops.
He even got the royal treatment from other troops on the plane coming stateside when they saw his insignia: “You’re BATTLE COMPANY!” = Drinks were being sent from everywhere and his hand got sore from shaking.
From Houston to Corpus to California - he was treated like royalty everywhere he went. He was blown away.
Here’s a couple ‘excerpts’:
Last week, he and his dad went up to Austin - my grandson is an accomplished guitarist, even played a full set on stage, when he was only 12, with the famous Blues man, Phillip Walker - so he wanted to check out the Blues bands in Austin. He was having such a good time, he suggested to his dad that they stay over night.
The hotel wanted $298 for one night. My grandson said: “Well, it’s not that I couldn’t pay that, it’s that I wouldn’t pay that to sleep anywhere for one night.” (He had on a BATTLE CO. tee shirt) He asked: “Do you, by chance, have a military rate?” A smile lit up the clerks face. “Just a minute,” he said.
He came back with the manager, who shook his hand and ...
the results were that they got a top story, $498 room, for $98.
And when he got to the airport yesterday morning for the trip back, he was taken out of line by the airlines reps - he asked: “Is there a problem?”
“Yes,” they said: “You do not stand in line. Come with us.”
And they put him in First Class! He was stunned. But what a wonderful “icing on the cake” moment for him as he heads back to hell.
I tear up just thinking what this all meant to him as he feared the worse before he came stateside, what with what they hear in the media.
(an aside: he has one of his guitars with him at the Korengal and is their “official” entertainer..)
Note: Just talked with one of my son’s who is a long-hauler. He was driving through Colorado today and was on the highway side by side with a convoy of troops who were head and shoulders visible to motorists.
He said every vehicle going past was cheering, waving and high-fiving them. He said the soldiers were waving back and grinning ear to ear.
Eat your black hearts out, you traitorous liberals. America is with our troops.
Thanks for the summary/information/education and for your tremendous work, Patty.
America’s finest, FReepers directly connected to America’s finest, and FReepers supporting America’s finest!
All-in-all, the finest people the rest of the world may never know.
Where do we go to donate to this project?
BTTT
Bless you for all you do! Especially with your own trials to deal with
An update on boxes to Battle Co.: The middle school that my grandson graduated from has really gone gung-ho for him and Battle Co.
They have, in two mailings, now sent over 30 boxes - the teacher spearheading the group got a grant and he and I went on a shopping spree!
The kids packed and taped and addressed and wrote letters - and made a huge (about 4'x6') poster with photos I supplied and that they pulled off the net from the ABC and NYTimes photos of them...They designed a plaque for "AIRBORNE" and made a CD...and used them for their Science Fair project.
These kids did a fantastic job. My grandson is going to visit the school when he gets a leave in the fall.
Mail cut off was the end of May - they will get out of that hell hole at the end of summer 0 and they will be stationed in their base in Italy for the year out of the war zone.
Most of the Sky Soldiers do not have family there so there's no "Welcome Home" party to greet them, but one is being organized, spearheaded by tankerbabe...and posters and $ donations are being sent to organize a "Welcome HOme" party like other units get when returning from deployment.
One of my granddaughters is helping me with a "poster" - we are painting a sheet~ It's not only bigger, but easier to mail than a cardboard poster - Pillow cases are great to use also.
We're painting the logos - for AIRBORNE, For the 173rd BATTLE CO< and for "The ROCK" - the small Rapid Response Team that my grandson is with. ..and we are going to iron on photos -
Since they don't get to come stateside, where they would get the "Welcome HOme" when they set foot on land - we are going to send the party to them in Italy...But don't tell any of them! It's a surprise...
Again, Patricia, THANK YOU for all you do for our incredible troops and BLESS and THANK YOU for also including Battle co,....
as we speak, no only has the spring surge that the big wigs said wouldn't come this year = come, but it's worse that ever. Prayers for our troops up in those isolated valleys infested with taliban...and the Pakis allowing the tallis free reign to ooze over the border, attack and scoot back to safe arms in Paki - where the Paki military is infiltrated/simpatico to the talies...
At least, this year, Battle co. has a howitzer for better and more precise cover...and they have a new puppy ;o)...they named him AIRBORNE - for two reasons...one being that everytime a mortar goes off or comes in, he goes "airborne"
http://www.lifewaystores.com/lwstore/ow.asp
Here are their store locations...
FR’s finest support America’s finest. Thanks to everyone involved. BUMP-TO-THE-TOP!
Sebastian Junger went back and embedded with them again th is spring and wrote the article. He will also have a movie on them - right now, slated to premier at Robert Redford's Sundance Screen Festival in Jan.
The last handful of he 173rd - BATTLE Co - got out of Afghanistan 31 July - stationed back in Italy for a year before going back.
They just had a big Welcome BACK party thrown for them in Italy - with Tankerbabe having been a major pull-it-together person. She did a herculean job for months to make sure our Sky Soldiers have a “Welcome Home” party like other units that ship back stateside and receive a big party.
Just before they left the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan, Admiral Mullen went there to present metals to 12 Sky Soldiers on The Rock. (my grandson is one)
http://www.foxnews.com/video/index.html?playerId=videolandingpage&streamingFormat=FLASH&referralObject=2238318&referralPlaylistId=playlist&maven_referrer=staf Prayers that AFghanistan/Pakistan fighting will be mostly done with soon.
What is the send to address?/Just Asking - seoul62.......
BUMP for FreeRepublic’s finest! Thanks.
FR’s finest support America’s finest...the finest men & women the rest of the world may never know! Thanks to all. BUMP FOR ALL!
BUMP for FR’s finest supporting America’s finest! Thanks.
Sebastian Junger (wrote “Perfect Storm”) and Tim Hetherington (won 1st place - out of 80,000 entries - in the 2008 World Photography Competition, with a photo of one of our guys) embedded with Battle Co. for much of their deployment...on the tiny Firebase on the side of a cliff. The movie is named “Restrepo” after the base - which was named in honor of one of their first fallen.
The SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL has just announced that “Restrepo” has made the cut - it will have it's World Premiere in Jan at SUNDANCE.
Once it comes out, we should all call the WH and recommend they watch it. Maybe they'll get a clue.
The country will know what our wonderful troops are doing. I think it will open a lot of eyes and our troops will get more respect from even the ignorant.
Blurb: “Restrepo (Directors: Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington)—Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington’s year dug in with the Second Platoon in one of Afghanistan's most strategically crucial valleys reveals extraordinary insight into the surreal combination of back breaking labor, deadly firefights, and camaraderie as the soldiers painfully push back the Taliban. World Premiere “
link
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/awards/2009/12/2010-sundance-film-festival-announces-film-lineup.html
As I post this, the unit is packing and heading back to the Kunar/Nuristan for another year - into the brutal winter of the high Hindu Kush - and NONE of the new 30,000 troops will go to them. Indeed, only 5,000 of the 30,000 will be fighters. The rest will be ‘trainers’ etc.