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]

Oh, that's so great about the 2 movies! I'll take them off the list.

FReepmailing you the APO.

[SENClander]

Patty,
Today I mailed one flat rate box to the new unit in Baghdad. Contents were:

"We Were Soldiers"
"Lethal Weapon 4"
2 packages of mandarin oranges-to-go
2 bags of fun size Nestles Crunch
1 bag of snack size KitKats
2 boxes of Airborne
15 individual packs of assorted crackers

[patriciaruth]

Mailed October 24, 2006, to the new unit at Baghdad which is training Iraqi soldiers
1 box, insured $135.61, postage $11.45
2 TV series boxed sets:
CSI Miami, season 1
Stargate SG-1, season 4
5 DVD movies:
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
Troy (Brad Pitt, Peter O’Toole)
Unbreakable (Bruce Willis)
DC 9/11 – Time of Crisis (Timothy Bottoms, Penny Johnson)
The Fifth Element (Bruce Willis)
11 regular bars Payday
11 fun size bars of Snickers
1 fly trap
1 V.V.O. surge protector
Imprimis: Separation of Church and State
Washington Times Weekly, October 2
The Good Clean Joke Book

Mailed October 24, 2006, to Camp Ramadi
1 box, insured $86.11, postage $10.40
2 boxed sets TV series:
24, season 3 (Kiefer Sutherland)
24, season 4 (Kiefer Sutherland)
2 bags 24 oz. tropical trail mix
1 laundry bag
1 bag with 25 individual packettes of 3 Castille soap wipes
Readers Digest, November 2006
Sports Illustrated from this week

[patriciaruth]

Thanks so much for sending those movies and goodies!!

[ohioWfan]

Just stopping in (which I don't do often enough!) to thank you for this wonderful ministry of love and patriotism, Patty.

May God bless you with strength and power as you serve Him in this incredible way!

[nina0113]

When you send the mandarin oranges, are they the ones in the plastic cups or the metal cans? Do you do any special packing?

[SENClander]

I send the ones in the plastic cups -- no special packing. I haven't heard of them breaking open -- yet ;o). If I'm enclosing something I don't want to get wet, I put that in a ziploc bag. And I really cram the stuff in so it doesn't rattle back and forth in the box.

[JoyjoyfromNJ]

It's better to send fruit in the cans, with pop-top lids. The plastic cups are very prone to breakage. Think of this: I sent a well packed box, all chunky soup solid cans; no shifting of contents was possible. It was returned (because the post office mis-read my directions on the customs form). Every single can was dented. The box was also full of the talc-powder-like dust even though every opening and seam had been sealed with dust. So if solid metal cans get dented, expect the plastic cups to break.

Anything liquid should be in DOUBLE zip-locked baggies.

[SENClander]

Thanks for the info. I guess some drippy packages arrived :o(

[Abigail Adams]

For Christmas, I would like to send a couple of packages of treats to one of the Stryker units. I already have some bagged candy. Let me know who I should send it to, and when. I'll be standing by at the ready!

[SENClander]

Daybreakcoming -- are you sending one of your Christmas trees to the new unit in Baghdad? I just got a request from them for a 3' tree which I'll send if you're not sending one of yours to them. Let me know. If you are sending them the tree (with lights?) I can send ornaments.

[patriciaruth]

I believe daybreakcoming ordered to 7 ft trees and had them shipped to MJY1288. He's aware they are coming and will mail them wherever we decide prior to Thanksgiving.

So, if you want to get a little tree for the new unit at Baghdad, then daybreakcoming's trees could be sent to Ramadi and Mosul.

I just met the father of a Marine in Iraq. He's checking me out to protect his son. He told me his son got the Halloween candy and my letter with the offer to send movies, etc. (I had given the boxes and postage money to his Mom who works in a local store.) I told his father about having a local donor (my optometrist) who would be happy to send a tree for his son's unit, that we do this every year.

Father is still wary about giving out the FPO and will be checking with a Marine officer about whether we should send it to a Marine to ship to his son.

So, there is still this possibility of doing Christmas for our first Marine unit hanging in the air.

I'll try to touch bases later, but it's getting pretty tight , time wise here.

[patriciaruth]

The current 172nd STryker units at Baghdad will hopefully be home for Christmas.

We do have a contact at Mosul in a STryker unit out of Ft Lewis, Washington that got there a couple months ago.

Check with SwatTeam as she has been in communication with that soldier.

[daybreakcoming]

Hi - I guess Patty has answered your questions except to say the trees are prelit which are a Godsend, aren't they?

My sis will be sending the ornaments for one tree - if you or anyone else would like, you can send ornaments for the other tree. Let me know - it's no problem if you have another area to cover.

[SENClander]

Okay -- I'll get the 3' tree for the new unit in Baghdad. If I have any leftover ornaments, I'll contact you and you can let me know where to send them.

BTW, my last package got to Baghdad in six days! I couldn't believe it.

[daybreakcoming]

SIX days? Amazing. Obviously you didn't send it through the Houston post office where things can stay there for that long. :o)

Patty, upon checking - MJY1288 should be receiving the trees today if he has not already. And what is the mailing cutoff date for Christmas?

[patriciaruth]

MJY1288 will mail out the trees before Thanksgiving. I'll be back in time to coordinate that.

All oversize packages should go before Thanksgiving.

Priority mail can get there if it goes by the end of November, and some of it will make it even if mailed by December 7.

I am going to be out of touch for 18 days now. I'll be in Texas packing up my Mom.

[patriciaruth]

I sent a FReep to MJY1288 for him to send the trees to Camp Ramadi and to the new Stryker unit contact at Mosul.

I am mailing out Buffalo Snow (with glitter) drapes (3x5 ft) than can be used as tree skirts to Mosul, Ramadi and the new training unit at Baghdad.

Ros42 or someone said they had a request for a 3 foot tree from our contact at the training unit at Baghdad. I think I gave them the go ahead to do that.

Nina0113 is handling Bagram and they found their Christmas tree.

Gotta run. This is it for a couple weeks. (Talk among yourselves.)

[patriciaruth]

Ah, it was you who were doing the 3 foot tree!!

I just sent Scrubs, season 4, OPen Range and National Treasure to Ramadi, and to the new unit at Baghdad sent Last Samurai, CSI Miami season 2, CSI NY season 1, and Stargate SG-1 season 5. Camp Ramadi sent them seasons 1-3 of Stargate.

Also sending left over Halloween candy to Mosul.

We had 305 trick or treaters last night.

Bye for a while. Maybe you could monitor the thread and let people know I'll be back the 18th, and help them coordinate what they are doing for Christmas.

SwatTeam is slightly indisposed. Kattracks is not available.

daybreakcoming has sent 2 trees to MJY1288, and I talked to him on the phone and he will take care of seeing they get sent to Mosul and Ramadi.

Bye, all. Have a good time!

[kattracks]

Hi all,

A must see thread.

THE TROOPS ANSWER KERRY

God Bless Our Troops! Not only are they brave but they have a GREAT sense of humor!