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.

[SENClander]

Good to "see" you on this thread, kattracks. That picture is hilarious. And don't forget -- still praying for you.

[SENClander]

We'll all be sure to remind ourselves that you'll be back on the 18th, Patty. I'll try to keep track of who is doing what for which unit. Remember -- I'm a senior citizen who has lots of "senior moments." Hope the move goes smoothly and you get your mom settled in just fine.

[SENClander]

Today I mailed to the new unit in Baghdad:

1 4' Christmas tree

1 flat rate box with:
CSI-Miami, season 4
1 Box of granola bars
1 Bag of maple creme cookies
1 Box of ginger snaps
1 Box of Celestial Seasonings ginger spiced tea
1 Bag of chocolate-caramel Hershey kisses
2 Boxes of apple cider mix
1 Sudoku book

I have some tree ornaments and tinsel garlands I'll be sending later on.

[SENClander]

Just to let y'all know what I've done so I don't duplicate anyone else's packages.

Today I mailed to the new training unit in Baghdad:

6 tinsel garlands
tree ornaments (garlands, balls, bells, snowflakes, etc.)
ornament hangers
3 CD's of Christmas music
assorted cards the troops can use to send to family and friends

[nina0113]

I got an emailfrom Bagram this morning - here are partial contents:


I received about 11 boxes in total from the "band". The soldiers were SOOO excited while I was opening the boxes and pulling out all of the costumes. We had a BUNCH of fun with it! We also wore them on Halloween and had a small Halloween party this past weekend. Thank you so much for sending everything. We decorated that offices and some of our rooms and had a total blast dressing up with all the costumes. It really meant a lot to our soldiers morale.

I hope to be able to get some of the pictures of the troops off to you soon.

[SENClander]

Thanks for sharing that, nina -- we need some good news today.

[daybreakcoming]

OK thanks. Hope to get the decor for my trees this w/e and sent off if not sooner. Time is coming down on me. :o)

[daybreakcoming]

Oh nina - reading this has brought the first real smile today. Can't you just imagine the fun they had thanks to you? God bless 'em and you too.

[patriciaruth]

pinging you to the current thread of the Merry Band of Patriots.

[patriciaruth]

Thanks for posting the feedback on Halloween at Bagram.

I hadn't heard from our contact before I left CA for TX and sometimes that makes me worry.

I'm hip deep here, gotta go, but want to say how grateful I am that you and SENClander and daybreakcoming, etc are carrying on so well in my absence.

I talked to kattracks last night. She had a preliminary visit with a specialist today, and I'd better go check messages.....

[jtill]

Today I sent identical flat rate boxes to Mosul and Ramadi:

52 signed Christmas Cards
1 Bag of Dove mixed minature chocolates
1 Bag of Gold Coin Disc chocolates
1 Bag of Candy Cane Tootsie Pops
1 Box of Caribou Coffee Bars
1 Box of Reeses Snack Barz
1 Box Kudo Variety Pak Bars

Patty had told me to send the Christmas Cards before Thanksgiving, and since the boxes needed more, I added a few things.

About 20 of the cards in each box were "signed" by the 2-4 yr. olds attending a Mother's Day Out at the Baptist Church here. The ladies in charge put their names, ages, city and state on the cards, as well as a notation that the children were at the Mother's Day Out.

[daybreakcoming]

Nice selection of stuff you sent. I love stuffing the empty spaces with goodies too. That was a sweet thought having the wee ones send cards.

I am still waiting on Flight 93 to come in so I can send the movies. Also thinking about throwing in a couple of good Hallmark movies for a change of pace from the action films. What do you think?

[jtill]

Sometimes a little romance is good for the heart. Some of the Hallmark movies are much better than the Hollywood types and the distraction from action might be very welcome.

Incidentally, on ATRW today they were lamenting about the lack of Christmas Cards saying Merry Christmas. In case anyone is looking for some, I found tons of them at The Dollar Store and some at Rite Aid.

[patriciaruth]

Bravo, J!!

Some hint of holiday cheer to come will be very welcome!

[SENClander]

Good idea about the Hallmark movies. I think they'd appreciate them and there are probably some gals around who would like something lighter.

A group of ladies from our church (one a WWII vet) contributed stocking stuffer items and I'll have enough to fill a stocking for each of the guys at the new training unit in Baghdad. I'll be getting those, plus some candy and snacks that they can share, off to the PO early next week. Christmas is sneaking up on us, isn't it?

[SENClander]

Another flat rate box went out to the new unit today::

2 boxes Orville Redenbacher popcorn
1 power strip
1 8' extension cord
3 packs AA lithium batteries
7 packs AAA energizer batteries
3 Sudoku books
3 mechanical pencils (with erasers for above)
5 rolls breathmints
1 bag fun size Milky Ways

I also received word that the head lamps arrived and were much appreciated.

[Freedom is eternally right]

Sent to Stryker unit at Mosul:

• 4 boxes spiced cider
• 3 boxes (30 count) hot chocolate
• 5 bags Hershey kisses (2 cherry cordial, 1 ea. candy cane, choc. mint, white choc.)
• Planter's nuts (3 pack)
• 9 cookie tins (small and medium sized)
• 2 boxes peanut brittle
• 1 canister hard Christmas candies
• 11 assorted snack packages (brownie trees, tree cakes, marshmallow treats)

[daybreakcoming]

OK - got the box of 14 movies out today. The two trees will be shipped over this week and we have several boxes of Christmas "stuff", including tree decor almost packed.

Movies were:

What About Bob?/Bill Murray, Richard Dreyfuss
Plainsong/Hallmark movie
Lawrence of Arabia
The Untouchables/Kevin Costner
Flight 93
Walk The Line
Payback/Mel Gibson
The Terminal/Tom Hanks
Walking Tall/The Rock
Striking Distance/Bruce Willis
Weekend at Bernies
Himself/Bill Cosby
Mask
Son of Mask

1 paperback: Assassins by Ollie North

Also threw in some candy.

[patriciaruth]

So glad to hear the headlamps arrived!

It's a controlled disaster here. My brother is going to have an angiogram and possible angioplasty of his posterior coronary artery tomorrow and I am driving him to the hospital as his wife can't drive and is still considerably disabled since her back surgery.

I'll be staying till I know if they are keeping him overnight or driving him home otherwise...long drives ...

I'm glad I decided to go on prophylactic antibiotics to try to keep well enough to cope with packing up Mom and this new crisis.

The news about the headlamps reminds me I did have a life and may soon get back to it. I miss my husband, too....:-(

Thanks so much for picking up the ball while I've been out of the loop.

LOVE!!
Patty