Thanks kat- always good to see you.
Posted on 01/21/2006 3:06:06 PM PST by 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.
Thanks!
Thanks!
Thank you!
Thanks!
Thanks kat- always good to see you.
Thanks for the ping kattracks
This week I mailed to our contact in Mosul:
1 tuna salad, 1 chicken salad, 3 chili's, 1 trail mix, 2 oatmeals to go, individual sugar packets, chick w/gravy, sweet/sour chicken, 1 back scratcher, 1 shower curtain, 1 package Airborne, 40 AA batteries, 10 AAA batteries.
Thanks for all you are doing.
I'll send Bagram a Queen Amidala costume (cheesy, of course) if you think one of the gals would like it.
Bless your heart on doing for Mosul. I'll definitely make sure they get some Halloween candy.
Oh yeah. I'm going to swing by the Party Store & see what else I can pick up.
You're very welcome.
A Co
1 Carton Teeni Drinks (24)
1 box Hunt's Snack Pack Pudding Cups (12 per)
5 Bumblebee Chicken Salad w/ Crackers
5 Bumblebee Tuna Salad w/ Crackers
C Co.
Same as above
Bagram
4 pkgs. Mondo Fruit Drinks (6 per)
2 pkgs. snacks (Popcorn, Cheese Curls, Corn Pops (6 per)
1 box Little Debbie Honey Buns (4 per)
12 Bumblebee Tuna Salad w/ Crackers
2 bags SweetTarts Candy
Kat -- I've got a bunch of Halloween candy and cookies (the famous orange-filled Oreos) which I'll pack up and send mid-October to A and C (Stryker). Also some magazines, sudoku books, and drink mix. Will let you know when they go out.
Email from RAMADI follows. For those who have asked, I am double checking the APO for Ramadi is still operational (buddies of contact opening while he is on leave) and that our contact will be back during the last week of October.
I've been out of email contact for the last couple weeks while visiting Mother in Texas. Many, many thanks to kattracks for helping out in my absence.
Because my mother's health is winding down, I will be away again for several weeks at end of October, first half of November as I go back to coordinate her moving here to live with me and my husband (who has racked up a huge number of brownie points in heaven for welcoming my mother to our home for the last years of her life.)
EMAIL from RAMADI (Sept 16):
Hello Patty!
I got the box of goodies and movies today. Thank you very much!. I watched Flight 93 already right when I opened the box. I was on the edge of my seat and I swear I could feel my heart racing like I was there.
The dried fruit are AWESOME! That is a very good bag. It had a nice selection. Keep those in mind. So how are things? I head back to the base in 3 days. Then I fly to another base to catch a floght to Kuwait and then to [father's home].
The wedding plans are going real smooth. My last hurdle is to finish paying for the flowers and the food. I willl have lots of pictures taken and a couple family ones of my kids and [fiancee's] kids together and with us in a family portrait.
Things here ahve been quiet. With Ramadan starting soon we expect activity to pick up. They know we will be giving them more room to do things since it is their holy month. But we expect radicalist to try to exploit the situation. I wish I was going to be here with my guys during the heightened activities but oh well. I guess 1 RPG close call is sufficeint.
Hot to run for now. Thank you very much for everything Patty and take care.
Thank you. I'm getting some candy together too, but I haven't been able to find "the famous orange filled Oreos" yet. My search continues!
When I got home I found I also have an Obi-Wan Kenobi (Episode I) costume and light saber which I will mail to Bagram along with the Queen Amidala costume.
I ordered the NYPD Blue TV series for C company at Baghdad.
They had a deal on getting Seasons 1-3 for the price of 2 so I got the first three seasons.
I should be able to mail them out by this coming Saturday.
Noticed that I had already posted the email from Ramadi...I'm a bit dingy still from the flight home.
The fifth season of Smallville for A company came to me while I was in Texas, but I never got to the post office to mail the care package because of the unexpected medical news about Mother and the extra running around I had to do to get her a handicap placard and a photo ID so we could put her on a plane in November and bring her here to live with us, which took four days of bureaucracy battling.
Anyway, I put the care package in my luggage intending to mail it from here Monday, and when I got home I found that the TSA had drilled the lock on that suitcase and opened the care package to check it. I guess the jar of peanut butter in it made them nervous. I had bought it for Mom, and then found out she shouldn't have peanuts on her new restricted diet.
Probably the peanut butter alone wouldn't have scared them but my alarm clock and its wire for radio wave reception was the final freak out factor. (I had removed the batteries...)
I'll call the suitcase company and see if I can get a TSA approved lock from them to replace it or if that suitcase can't be repaired and is another victim of the war on terror. There was no TSA when I bought the luggage 25 years ago.
Thanks so much for all the Hallowe'en candy organizing. Let me know if your current personal chores make it hard for you to continue that. I'm not sure who's sending what to whom. If you let me know, I can help fill in any gaps as I am going to be sending some DVD's out and can fill boxes with candy.
Just downloaded the order from Amazon and found they wouldn't be shipping the 3 for the price of 2 NYPD Blue DVD's till November 30!
So I ordered just the first two seasons separately. They should be here this week and I'll mail them out right away to C company.
Which unit would you like me to send candy to? Thx :-)
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