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.

[ALOHA RONNIE]

.

"WE WERE SOLDIERS" - The Paramount Pictures website

http://www.WeWereSoldiers.com


"WE WERE SOLDIERS" - The 'For Real' Pictures

http://www.lzxray.com/guyer_set1.htm

http://www.lzxray.com/guyer_collection.htm

.

[JoyjoyfromNJ]

PR, I'm holding off packing boxes for Mosul because I got the impression from a previous posting you'd like me to divert some of the items to another unit. I haven't heard anything further from you (what to send elsewhere, address to send it etc). So I'm still on standby, waiting orders, ma'am!

P.S. I'm anticipating putting at least a few snacks/treats in the boxes but I can't post specifics yet until I know how to divide up the decorations. E.g., I have a 7 lb bag of individually wrapped red/white peppermints; can go in 1 box or can be put into several baggies for different boxes.

[patriciaruth]

Could you divide the decorations in two and send half to Stryker at Mosul and half to Stryker near the Syrian border?

And send the one with the most edible treats to Mosul.

Let me know if you end up with some left over as we could send those to Irbil or Tal Afar.

I'll FReep you the two addresses.

[patriciaruth]

Thought I'd be hearing from you, Ronnie!

Any chance you want to buy a copy of this at Amazon Marketplace or eBay and have them mail it to me to send to Tal Afar?

If not I can pick up a copy next time I'm in WalMart.

Aloha from the Golden State!
Patty

[JoyjoyfromNJ]

Wilco! (Does the military still use that or am I hopelessly outdated?)

[CDHart]

What's a Petzl headlamp?

Carolyn

[kattracks]

"Stryker at Mosul MOSUL

Kattrack could send her package here,..."

Will do. Has the address changed?

[SENClander]

I was afraid you were going to ask that - :o)

Tal Afar:
24 pkg (4 in pkg)Keebler chocolate cookies
60 packets Crystal Light
40 packets tea
50 (.28 oz ea) slim jims
3 pkg (4.05 oz size)beef jerky
4 pkg napkins (16 ea)
3 pkg (50 ea)red buttermint creams
1 bag (72 ea) RWB balloons
1 pkg (12 ea) baseball bounce balls
12 pkg (1-1/4 oz ea)Cracker Jacks
1 pkg (12 ea) insects
153 single piece watermelon bubble gum
2 cd's - "American Pride" (various artists) and "American Patriot" (Lee Greenwood)
6 12' garlands (2R, 2W, 2B)

Stryker (border):
2 boxes (110 ea individually wrapped) hand sanitizing wipes
12 SPF30 sunblock lip balm
2 pkg (16 ea) napkins
1 pkg (12 ea) baseball bounce balls
4 pkg 8' paper flag banners
2 mini star table centerpieces
1 pkg (12 ea) insects
1 pkg (50 pieces) red buttermint creams
4 pkg (1-1/4 oz ea) Cracker Jacks
40 packets tea
60 packets Crystal Light
3 bags (4.05 oz size) beef jerky
50 (.28 oz ea) slim jims
12 packs (.81 oz ea) Pringles potato chips
100 single piece watermelon bubble gum
8 pkg (1-1/4 oz ea) Cracker Jacks

I also have a six DVD collection of America's Great Road Trips and Scenic Drives (a Reader's Digest collection) that I'll squeeze in a box if I can.

Unless I hear otherwise, I'll send them on to Tal Afar and Stryker (border).

[patriciaruth]

With L.E.D. 4 unidirectional tiny light bulbs, flip up red lens, push button, the Petzl headlamp is a state of the art miniflashlight that comes with a band to put around your helmet and lithium batteries guaranteed for 10,000 hours of use.

When you see soldiers with black things attached to the fronts of their helmets, many of those are headlamps. Good for finding ammo in the dark or for working on intel when the electricity fails at night.

Last year we filled a supply gap for a couple of units. This year the headlamps come standard with their gear for the units we supplied last year.

I'm not an expert, so this is mostly what I know. The Petzl headlamps were the most popular items we sent last year and the soldiers were very grateful to get them.

Our main donor was a local optometrist (our Daddy Warbucks Dept.) who paid for 3/4 the cost of sending them. Petzl America sold them to us at market cost, but then donated one for every one we bought.

Spanaway Lori and HannahUSA brought the need to our attention and got the deal with Petzl set up.

[patriciaruth]

Sounds fabulous. The watermelon flavored bubble gum is pure inspiration!

[patriciaruth]

Wilco?

I'll ask a soldier in a Signal Corp for you. Don't know when I'll hear back.

[CDHart]

Thanks for the info.

Carolyn

[Abigail Adams]

I got a nice letter from our contact in Tal Afar yesterday...Yay! It's so exciting to get personal mail, especially from a soldier! :-)

I will be buying treats and stuff for Mosul this week. I'll post details at the end of the week.

[patriciaruth]

Please post some of your letter from Tal Afar if it isn't too personal or doesn't violate security. We love to share it.

[patriciaruth]

ANNOUNCEMENT:

MJY1288 made copies of a DVD we got from Afghanistan.

In order to help pay for the care packages that went out to Tal Afar this week and will go out over the next month, I'm offering to send a copy of this wonderful 17 minute DVD with pictures of soldiers in Afghanistan and some special live footage to the next 8 donors.

The unit at Tal Afar has requested boxed TV series, and in addition to 24 and Smallville, we will be sending CSI and Stargate SG-1.

Mailed May 13, 2006, to Tal Afar, 3 boxes
Box 1, insured $68.65, postage $10.40
DVD entertainment:
Boxed set TV series 24, Season 1, 6 disc set (Kiefer Sutherland)
The Great Raid (Benjamin Bratt)
The Man from Snowy River (Tom Burlington)
Total Recall (Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sharon Stone)
Passion of the Christ (Jim Caviezel)
Box 15 Act II microwave popcorn bags (Butter Lover’s)
3 packs 12 Eclipse sugarfree spearmint chicklets

Box 2, insured $71.93, postage $10.40
DVD entertainment:
Boxed set TV series Smallville, Season 1, 5 disc set (Tom Welling, Kristin Kreuk)
Gettysburg (Jeff Daniels, Martin Sheen, Tom Berenger)
Coach Carter (Samuel L. Jackson)
Box 8 Nutrigrain cereal bars (mixed berry flavor)
Box 15 Act II microwave popcorn bags (Butter)
2 magazines:
Sports Illustrated with Lance Armstrong cover
Reader’s Digest, June, 2006
2 packs 12 Eclipse sugarfree spearmint chicklets

Box 3, insured $78.67, postage $10.40
DVD entertainment:
Boxed set TV series Smallville, Season 2, 6 disc set (Tom Welling, Kristin Kreuk)
Alamo (Dennis Quaid, Billy Bob Thornton)
Ransom (Mel Gibson)
Chicken Little (animated Disney comedy)
Box 8 Nutrigrain cereal bars (raspberry flavor)
Box 15 Act II microwave popcorn bags (Movie Theatre Butter)
2 packs 12 Eclipse sugarfree spearmint chicklets

Mailed May 1, 2006, to a MSG at Irbil
1 box, insured $51.00 (value $43.31), postage $10.40
2 plastic 2 lb bottles of Planters peanuts, one dry roasted, one honey roasted
2 canisters 1 lb Planters cashews, halves and pieces
35 small pkgs of JellyBelly jelly beans
2 DVD movies:
March of the Penquins (narrated by Morgan Freeman)
Chicken Little (Disney)—cute and funny

[fanfan]

ROFLOL!

OK! OK!

I'm in!

What do you need?

[patriciaruth]

Yep, I'm shilling BIG TIME for the troops here. Next it'll be late night TV ads.

P.S. I can't remember if you got the red lace table runner I mailed you. Did it get there okay?

[patriciaruth]

Okay, doll, where's that picture of you in the burqa that you promised?

You can send the picture to New Perspective to post if you can't do it yourself.

[patriciaruth]

Well, you can send me the money or you can buy a boxed set of Season 2 of 24 and mail it to Tal Afar.

[fanfan]

We should see how much it costs in the US vs Canada.

I'll check, but it probably is more expensive here.