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.

[kattracks]

Prayers offered for him and all of our troops.

[nina0113]

I have 21 bags of candy for the unit in Bagram, plus cider mix and popcorn. Is there another unit that's not covered?

[SwatTeam]

I have been buying goodies for Halloween and plan on sending it to Ramadi in about a week or so. Still having seeing problems and last week I tripped and fell and sprained my wrist. I thank God it wasn't worse. Getting pretty good at typing with 1 hand. Am keeping your Mom and you in my prayers.

[patriciaruth]

Cool! I was holding out on assigning Ramadi as I thought you and another member might want dibs on our 1st Armored Division soldiers there.

I've got you down for Ramadi now. Please let me know what you get and when you mail it.

Yippee!

[patriciaruth]

We're doing pretty good so far on coverage.

I'll let everyone know in a week, so any who wants to help fill in some gaps can step forward.

There are lots of soldiers at Bagram, not just our contact's group. I'd recommend sending any extras to her and let her send those bags out to the fire bases for the guys in the boondocks.

[patriciaruth]

SwatTeam is also sending candy to Ramadi, so you may want to coordinate with her a little.

If you don't have the APO on the letter your son got, then get back to me.

If you need any help, read posts 29, 30 and 48? (close) on customs form, packing tips, restrictions that were posted near the beginning of this thread, and then contact me with any more specific questions.

Thanks so much for helping out with our men at Ramadi! Please let me know what you get and when you mail. :-)

[patriciaruth]

Okay, great! I've got you down on the A and C in BAGHDAD lists. That pretty much covers those companies, and we have great starts on our other bases.

I'll post totals in a week so people can step forward and fill in any gaps before our mailing ETD of October 15.

You all are terrific!!

[patriciaruth]

Posts 31, 32 and 49.

[Abigail Adams]

Wow, we have a new Stryker unit at Mosul? That's great!

Patty, hope all goes well with moving your mother to your house! You are a saint!

[Abigail Adams]

Prayers going up for Rangerwife's husband! May God bring healing and strength to him, and peace to his family.

[Ros42]

So I should send candy to Bagram? Whatever you all decide is fine with me. :-)

[patriciaruth]

Yes, Ros42, please send the candy to Bagram. Nina bought a lot, but she can't supply all the soldiers there.

You were really terrific with the Psyops unit that was at Baghdad, so I thought you might sync well with this other psyops unit that is near Kabul in Afghanistan.

I'll FReepmail you the APO.

[patriciaruth]

We have been ignoring the new Stryker units from Ft. Lewis in Washington State that took over at Mosul and along the Syrian border this summer when the 172nd out of Alaska had their tour extended and were sent to Baghdad.

Hoping the 172nd Stryker Brigade will be home for Christmas, I am planning on turning our attention to the new Stryker units after Halloween.

But a couple token packages have been sent to our contact at "Mosul" already.

I sure hope the 172nd gets to go home for Christmas.....

[Ros42]

Consider it done! Thx :)

[patriciaruth]

EMAIL from a battle captain of Stryker in Baghdad, now back from emergency family leave. EMAIL from our contact at Ramadi follows it.

BAGHDAD
Patty -

I'm back in Baghdad. I came back to some nice boxes of treats, please pass along my thanks to ** and [my optometrist]. I watched Flight 93 and it definitely gave me a renewed sense of purpose in this fight. I know it is mostly speculation, but man, I thought the movie portrayed the severity of the situation and the absolute heroism that took place on that plane.

Sorry to hear about your mother. I took care of my elderly great aunt and uncle for awhile in college and I can assure you, it is no easy task you are about to embark on. While I'm sure it'll be nice for you to have your mother close, there will inevitably be many tough times ahead for you and your husband. I wish you luck.

Things are crazy here and it is interesting to be in the epicenter of it all. Situations we work through are sometimes reported in near real time on the news. It reminds me of when you are in an electronics store and you walk by the video cameras that film you and you know how you wave your arm around to see it move on the TV screen?

Well, things are like that sometimes. We'll get a report from a platoon that they have found 7 dead bodies killed execution style and shortly afterwards, the news will report 9 dead bodies found. Later on, we find out there was actually 9. It's crazy.

My wife is doing much better. Her sister replaced me for a week, but she is now on her own. She says she stills wears out easily, but things are getting better a little bit each day. She has even started back to work (she works from home on the computer, so it's not too strenuous). The biggest challenge is doing the single mommy thing.

Just out of curiousity, what kind of doctor are you?

Thanks again for all your support,
SPM

RAMADI
Hello from Mr and Mrs P**, LOL.

The letter [to AnnaZ's son] was my pleasure.

I will be back in Iraq around the *** (my bday....yeahhh) [So, mail out the Halloween candy to Ramadi, AnnaZ and SwatTeam, and anyone else who wants to volunteer]

We got extended until mid to end march. I will catch better up with you when I get back and lots of pics to go round.

Thanks for everything
***

A Company Stryker at BAGHDAD:
Pat,
I am working on some pics and will send them real soon. I distribute the packages that you send evenly, so there is not really any Soldiers that would require individual packages. Thanks again for all of the support

***

[potlatch]

Thank you for the ping

[Dante3]

bttt

[snugs]

Reminder for you that Monday is Colombus Day don't go to the post office this year :0)

[SwatTeam]

Thanks for all the updates. I got a sweet thank you card from the psyop contact in Afghanistan yesterday. I am guessing that is your contact there. If you know of any other requests they have I will gladly do what I can to get some in the mail when I mail the boxes to Ramadi next week. Or I can have some things sent from Amazon. Chris got his DVD on the 16th, just like Amazon predicted.

[Kitty Mittens]

Thank you for your Every Ping, my Dearest Sister, and Rangerwife's Husband is still in my Prayers.

Our Lord Mightily Bless the Wonderful Kindness you are Doing for your Sweet Mother!