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.

[Ros42]

BTTT! (Hope you feel better soon Patty!!)

[VeniVidiVici]

Hi Patty, been awhile! Sorry to hear you’re feeling poorly. Hope you feel better quickly!

Since I last helped, my own son has deployed to Iraq. I’d like to contribute in some way again this year so please let me know if I can do anything.

[patriciaruth]

Hi!!!

Great to hear from you. My now ninety year old aunt got her new roof put on after that hurricane ripped off the tiles and we got a handy man from our old church to put a tarp up to protect it for 5 five months or so till so could hire roofer for the permanent job.

I’ll never forget your helping out that Christmas with MI at Kirkuk.

Currently I’m opening negotiations with a new Stryker Brigade in Iraq, a handmedown from one of our own who was with Stryker at Baghdad for a year after starting at Mosul.

Maniac-7 has a grandson in Afghanistan fighting Taliban/al Qaeda that are filtering back in from Pakistan. They can use beef jerky and power bars and dried fruit/trail mix if you’ve a mind to send a package out now to anyone.

Can you tell me (FReepmail if necessary) what and where your son is doing in Iraq?

Could he use a Petzl TacTikka Plus headlamps?

How are you and the wife doing??

I’ve stopped vomiting and my fever has broken. Ah, life is beginning to look not so bad again...

Cheers!

[patriciaruth]

Can anyone tell me what this report by my virus software means?

Risk name: MSRPC Malicious LSASS DS Request BO (1)

Attacking Computer: 76.160.255.111,3288
Attacking Computer: 76.53.10.103,16924

[Abigail Adams]

Hi Patty! Hubby suggests that you google the text after the “risk name” and see if there is any info out there about it.

My goodness, I forgot to post about the 3 boxes of candy I sent to Bagram last Friday! Yikes! I will try to remember to do it tomorrow.

[Old Sarge]

I did a quick security search and found these:

FORENSIC LOG:

Infection Source:
76.160.255.111
Executables Delivered:
ftpupd.exe
txyqlyt.exe
Listen Ports Opened:
1031
1031
891
Processes Created:
MSMSGS.EXE
txyqlyt.exe
Registry Entries Modified or Created:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE@...Microsoft\Wireless

It’s the IP addresses of the computers that the bug is launching from. It looks like the bug is trying to exploit MS Messenger.

More...
“The Windows Messenger from Microsoft provides Online Chat and Instant Messaging.
If you don’t use Windows Messenger, you can disable it as follows: Start -> Programs -> Windows Messenger -> Tools -> Options -> Preferences. Uncheck “Run this program when Windows Starts”.

Note: The msmsgs.exe file is located in the folder C:\Program Files\Messenger. In other cases, msmsgs.exe is a virus, spyware, trojan or worm! Check this with Security Task Manager.”

[BykrBayb]

I don’t know. This page from google’s cache might give you some info. http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:A9D-ZrYsPHwJ:www.cybertechhelp.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-147714.html+Risk+name:+MSRPC+Malicious+LSASS+DS+Request+BO+(1)&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=us .

Here’s the search I did. Search: Risk name: MSRPC Malicious LSASS DS Request BO (1). http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Risk+name%3A+MSRPC+Malicious+LSASS+DS+Request+BO+%281%29&btnG=Google+Search .

[floriduh voter]

Looks serious. Download free AVG software and you'll be protected. That's advice from a computer repairman.

Download the software and it will scan everything including that message you posted.

[patriciaruth]

Thanks, Sarge!

I disabled Windows Messenger as you suggested. I don’t ever use it anyway.

My antiviral program identified the computer numbers. Is there anyway those numbers can be used to track the source of the attack?

[patriciaruth]

I have antiviral software. It identified the “attacking computer” by number when it blocked the virus, but I don’t know how to use that information, the computer number.

I mean is there any agency that is working on stopping these virus senders?

[Abigail Adams]

Sent to Bagram on Friday, October 19, in 3 boxes. All candy in appx. 11-oz bags, except for one 40-oz bag:

1 box Newman’s Own microwave popcorn, 3 ct.

1 bag almonds

4 bags Hershey’s Kisses (almonds, cherry cordial, special dark, regular)

1 bag Kit-Kat

1 bag orange Kit-Kat

1 bag Mounds

2 bags 3 Musketeers Minis

2 bags Reeses Snack Size

1 bag Milky-Way Fun Size

1 bag Twix Fun Size

1 bag Snickers Fun Size

1 40-oz bag Snickers Minis

[JustAmy]

An email from Bagram follows:

~~~~~~

Thank you so much for all the Halloween Candy and for all your support, that’s amazing. I am constantly overwhelmed by the genorosity you all display. Thank you so much.

We received so much candy, that we decided we will take about half of it for a Halloween Party/Scary Movie night. The rest we are sending to soldiers or soldiers also deployed overseas. My little brother is here in
Afghanistan as well, so we sent a box to him. Another soldier’s father is in Iraq, so we sent him a little something. And finally, one soldier’s wife is also deployed to Iraq, while he’s deployed here, so she’s getting some candy and then us girls threw in a little extra girlie stuff we had aquired.

Things are going well here. The weather continues to get cooler. Yesterday was the first time since early this year that I’ve seen snow fall on the mountain tops, I was very excited. Also, this morning I saw my breath for the first time in awhile.

Take care and thank you so much for your support.

[Abigail Adams]

Thanks for sharing that with us! :-)

[fanfan]

Time for some good news, my FRiend.

http://www.freedominion.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=89617

*HUGS*

[patriciaruth]

Update:
Our contact at Petzl America was out of town for a few weeks but we finally got the second batch of headlamps for NPTT units at Camp Liberty ordered. The first unit really liked theirs.

I’m having trouble contacting a new Stryker unit at FOB Stryker. His email box is bouncing back as over quota, and a letter I sent a couple weeks ago has not been answered. We’ll keep trying.

Mailed November 6, 2007, directly from Petzl America to HHC of NPTT at Baghdad (thanks to MEG33, SwatTeam and norton):
10 Tactikka Plus head lamps (4 L.E.D, flip up red lens, covered push button)

Mailed November 6, 2007, to HHC of NPTT at Baghdad (thanks to jtill):
1 box, insured $99.91 (value $105.41), postage $11.00
1 Tactikka Plus head lamp
5 DVD Movies:
Braveheart (Mel Gibson)
High Noon (Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly)
Open Range (Kevin Costner, Robert Duvall, Annette Benning)
Winchester 73 (Jimmy Stewart)
Witness (Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis)
1 bottle Delsym cough syrup
1 pkg 20 nasal decongestion 12 hour tablets
5 partial bags Halloween candy:
Hershey’s kisses with almonds ~45
Starburst 2 packs ~30
Whoppers large 1.75 oz packs 14
Indian corn candy
M&M’s with peanuts 13 funsize
Thanksgivng card
Lincoln and the Copperheads article
1 magazine: Sports Illustrated Bears v. Patriots
Sunday comic section

[Future Snake Eater]

Yeah, I’m keeping my eye on AIM for the Stryker contact I set you up with. Unfortunately, his AKO address is the only email I have for him. My last few emails have been bounced back as well. That means he either uses AKO more for a backup email than primary or he’s been too busy to get to the MWR internet facility. Either way, I’ll do what I can to get you guys linked up with him. You guys rock, and I want his unit to benefit from your kindness and generosity.

[patriciaruth]

I’ve got 3 boxes of Halloween candy for the new Stryker unit when I get a confirmation on the APO. And we wanted to send them a prelit Christmas tree, but we’ll need to get that ordered pretty soon. It has to go out before Thanksgiving.

Do the Stryker units have headlamps issued as routine gear? Could they use some Tactikka Plus headlamps from Petzl?

Also, norton has a cool tactical flashlight that he wants to send when we get the APO confirmation.

[patriciaruth]

Great Canadian website!!

Did you help get it going, or supply some of the troop care package information?

[PGalt]

Typically they move us quickly to vanities, so we "go dark" soon after the thread is posted.

BUMP for FR's finest supporting America's finest. Thanks to all contributors on this thread.

[Future Snake Eater]

No, headlamps are not issued. They are VERY handy, from walking around the FOB at night, to putting one on the MICH under your night vision mount so you can see inside a dark house during a raid. One of the handiest pieces of gear I had over there, no doubt!