CARE PACKAGES for our Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, 2006

patriciaruth ^ | 1-21-06 | patriciaruth

[patriciaruth]

Welcome to the 2006 thread of the Merry Band of Patriots!

Our grassroots, volunteer group of troop supporters has been sending care packages to servicemen and women in war zones since the summer of 2001 when we began by sending VHS movies and Snickers candy bars to the 101st Airborne and then later the 10th Mountain at Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo.

This last year we sent a couple hundred care packages to troops at Baghdad, Kirkuk, Mosul and Tal Afar in Iraq, at Bagram in Afghanistan, at Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo and to our wounded at Landstuhl Regional Hospital in Germany.

Our specialty in the past has been movies, books, snacks, holiday decorations and some appliances like DVD players and Playstations, and we have sent hundreds of movies to various bases.

This last year we had 6 main projects in addition to the usual care packages:

1. We sent over 80 state-of-the-art Petzl headlamps to our adopted company of Stryker Brigade Combat Team at Mosul and 35 to an MI unit at Kirkuk. This was probably the most appreciated item we've ever sent, thanks to a project that got off the ground due to the work of Spanaway Lori, HannaUSA , and Oatka and 3/4th of which was funded by my optometrist.

2. There was the Personal Care items "Emergency" Airlift to Bagram air base in June and July. (mathluv, nina0113, Coop, JustAmy, airborne, iceskater, Tunehead54, jtill participated.)

3. The 4th of July Party Decorations and Snacks blowout for all our adopted units. (pictures at posts 357, 358, 368 of our 2005 thread)

4. Operation Popcorn in August and September for the Engineers at Baghdad (iceskater, mathluv, SENClander, Coop, Abigail Adams, Ros42, Ican'tbelieve it, jtill and ebay's mshoponline sent over 600 bags of microwave popcorn, while omegatoo's were lost in the shuffle of her evacuating New Orleans prior to the Katrina flooding)

5. The End of Summer Luau for psyops at Baghdad in September and October (MJY1288 mailed off the party things we bought at eBay and Amazon with contributions from fanfan, kattracks, jtill, Just mythoughts, Ros42, Pig Rigger, MJY1288 and Kitty Mittens. Pictures at post 809 of the 2005 thread)

6. Halloween candy and movies for the Troops (kattracks, SENClander, Ican'tbelieveit, Abigail Adams mailed boxes in addition to the ones I sent with donations)

7. The Amazing Christmas and New Years Deluge, when it rained packages at all our adopted bases, especially at Tal Afar.
Special mentions go to Teams captains: mathluv (Engineers Baghdad), Ros42 (psyops Baghdad), CAluvdubya (Tal Afar), Abigail Adams (Stryker at Mosul), VeniVidiVici (MI at Kirkuk), nina0113 (Bagram, Afghanistan). Fairy Godmother Dept. (kattracks), Christmas Trees and Christmas Cards R Us (daybreakcoming), Shipping Dept (MJY1288), DVD Recording Dept (MJY1288), Webhosting and Photoshopping Dept (New Perspective), Daddy Warbucks Dept (my optometrist).

Among the many care packages sent by our troop supporters are these projects.
Boxes of school supplies for Iraqi children were sent by mathluv, Ican'tbelieveit, and my mother to Operation Crayon in Kirkuk.
Some members (CAluvdubya, angelsonmyside, 4integrity, ebay's susiemck) helped fill requests for Western Movies from an MI unit at Kirkuk (now home, movies still there) and Clint Eastwood and Adam Sandler movies from Fox Battery at Kirkuk (now home, movies still there).
bjcintennesse made many dozens of cooling neck scarves and sent them to pysops and Engineers at Baghdad.
DAVEY CROCKETT mailed boxesful of car magazines to a couple units.
A copy of the hardback book about the first year of the Revolutionary War (1776 by David McCullough) was sent to most of our units by DrDeb, iceskater, SwatTeam, and Just a Cowgirl.
Ros42 and mscht adopted a unit at Camp Ramadi for Christmas. (picture at 1195 of the 2005 thread).
CheneyChick and daybreakcoming saw to it that some care packages went to a remnant of our troops still in Kosovo.
Daybreakcoming's sister helped the staffers of the Louisiana legislature send about 8 boxes with around 32 bags of Christmas candy to Tal Afar.

Our many generous donors of checks, cash, money orders, Paypal, shopping cards, phone cards, etc are listed in the Accounting posts in our 2005 thread which can be linked from the post below.

We were surprised and emotional when we received back from our adopted units some of the items pictured below, and a big thank you to jkphoto for taking the pictures and webhosting them.

[patriciaruth]

EMAIL from BAGRAM air base near KABUL, AFGHANISTAN!

Dear Mrs. **,

Thank you so much, you guys have been so wounderful throughout this entire deployment. I can not emagine this time going by like it did without you. It is nice to know that some people support us out here.

Thank you,

**-

PS. I sent out something to you today in the mail but it will probably take a while because of the mail system.

Thanks

---

EMAIL from TALL AFAR, IRAQ!

Patty,

The follow-on units have arrived but until the switch out is complete they still don't have mailing addresses. Also their time is filled with learning the surroundings, work, and the huge transition to muddy desert life.

I will find willing recipients for your packages once they a stable mailing address. I will still be at this location until the end of May, no more traveling for me thankfully. Any time that I have been gone and even when I leave permenantly there will be people here to pass out any late package arrivals, there will never be one left unclaimed. The new soldiers are very greatfull for the packages and look forward to the next holiday celebration.

Three packages from [kattracks] showed up today filled with tons of cookies and cracker snacks. It is still very cold here so hot coco and apple cider goes very fast especially when there is chocolate or cookies near by lol. With all of the rain the rooms are getting very musty smelling so I would imagine some baking soda would absorb the smells, the air freshners are working but it's a tough battle to fight.

Well that's all for now,
***
Tall Afar, Iraq

[Diva Betsy Ross]

Thanks for the ping. I still cant believe I missed you the whole last year.... How can I join you in making these packages

[SENClander]

Patty, I, too, was surprised to get a thank you note from Tal Afar that I'd like to share:

**Thanks so much for your thoughts and kind gifts to the troops. Your box of treats was passed to me "MWR" - Morale, Welfare, and Recreation" to put out for the troops. Bless you and Happy New Year.**

[Just mythoughts]

Thanks for the ping. No dollar amount can give me the satisfaction of being a part of your and others good work in supporting our troops. Prayers of thanksgiving for the wonderful people involved.

[patriciaruth]

You're now on the ping list.

See posts above for some recent emails from the war zones.

Welcome!

[Abigail Adams]

I shipped 196 valentines to the Stryker Brigade in Mosul on Monday, February 6, in one pre-paid Priority Mail box. Here's the list:

48 Scratch Game valentines (tic-tac-toe, etc.)

36 stand-up Dirt Bike and ATV valentines

24 Make-A-Face valentines (blank faces with various eye/nose/mouth stickers)

40 Race Car valentines with mazes on the back

48 Airplane valentines (they fold up into paper airplanes)

I wrote on each valentine some or all of the following, depending on space: "To: Our Hero, From: The Merry Band of Patriots, We love you!"

I packaged them in 7 Ziploc bags of 25, plus one Ziploc bag of 21, so they have an easier time counting and distributing them.

I ordered these from Current Catalog, and it took a lot longer for them to get shipped to me than I had expected. So let's all pray that they get to Mosul in time for Valentine's Day! (I think they'll be fun for the soldiers even if they are a little late.)

I also filled the empty space in the box with:
1 can mixed nuts
1 box hot cocoa mix, 10 envelopes
2 bags microwave popcorn
A couple small Ziploc bags of chocolate candy

God bless our troops!
Abigail Adams

(Patty, could you ping people to my post? Thanks!)

[Abigail Adams]

I got an email from Operation AC saying they have 500 soldiers who are looking to be adopted. Their web site is www.operationac.com.

We adopted a soldier from them last year. Part of what they do is a soldier can sign up to be adopted and can indicate if they want new boots. Then the person who adopts them can buy the boots for them (about $100) or can ask Operation AC to send the boots (no cost to you) to the soldier on your behalf.

Just thought I'd pass along the info. :-)

[patriciaruth]

Inviting everyone to share shezza's joy in her husband's homecoming from Afghanistan.

Link to shezza's thread

[Coop]

Thanks for the link.

[kattracks]

Mailed 2 flat rate boxes to Tal Afar this afternoon. 24 Renuzit air freshners.

[patriciaruth]

Absolutely fantastic! The Renuzit will be a big hit at Tall Afar!

[patriciaruth]

EMAIL from MOSUL!

Dr. Patty -
My platoon just got back from our rotation down at a combat outpost and there was a plethora of boxes from the Merry Band of Patriots. Please pass along my thanks to the following folks: [kattracks], [Mr and Mrs Abigail Adams], [Mr and Mrs Tunehead54], and of course, you.

Also, there were two boxes delivered to me while I was down at COP *** and I didn't write down the names of the senders and for the life of me, I can't remember the name. There was also one or two boxes I received right before we left that I put out for the company, but failed to send a thank you note along. We thank everyone who took the time to write all those valentines, they brought smiles around the horn.

Again, you are a great bunch of folks and we appreciate your thoughts and prayers.

There is a reporter embedding with our battalion, I'm attaching a link to her blog site. Hopefully, she'll find her way outside of the battalion HQ to get a taste of what it's really like.

Link to Dispatches from Iraq in USAToday

Sincerely,
LT ***

[Txsleuth]

Great...thanks for the post...and the link to the reporter, I bookmarked her site.

[patriciaruth]

What did you find depressing?

[fanfan]

I responded to the wrong thread again.

Please delete # 134.

[patriciaruth]

You were referring to the opinion article talking about America being in a "Long War" with terrorism?

[angelsonmyside]

Patty
Thanks for the ping, it is always so nice to hear back from them. I got a really sweet thank you note from one of mine a few days ago. I enclosed a Nerf Football in all their packages this month along with all the typical goodies. This particular one has a great sense of humor and is very playful so I told him to smack one of his buddies with it. He told me it was great and he did just what I told him. He said they had a blast with that thing and have not laughed that hard sense they had been there. Now all of his tent mates want me to send more stuff like that, lol. Amazing how much they appreciate the smallest of things.

[Ros42]

Great email from them Patty! Look forward to reading through the reporters blog.

[Just mythoughts]

bttt