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]

I've been thinking about your box that came back from Huston post office saying it wasn't packed properly...

Was the top bulging?

The main rule with flat rate priority boxes is that they have to close flat on top. You can't overstuff them.

Also I once had a fill in postal clerk gripe about my putting the destination on the side of the box, which we sometimes do to help them sort the packages in Kuwait.

Any clues here?

[Dinah Lord]

On 06/06/06 the following was sent to Stryker near TalAfar:

100 cold paks (27lbs worth - thank goodness for flat rate priority boxes)
40 Italian Ice pops
4 big bags of beef jerky
12pkgs of popcorn.


God bless the troops! Good riddance, Zarqawi!

[kattracks]

Mailed 3 boxes this afternoon. One to Bagram, two to Camp Ramadi.

Bagram

(travel size)

10 Colgate Shaving Cream, 10 Speed Stick deod., 10 Nice N' Clean wipes (20 per pkg.)10 Charnin' To Go, 2 pkgs. disposable razors (24 per), 10 Eyelieve Eye Drops, 10 bottles shampoo (Head & shoulders/Pert), 10 Crest non alcoholic mouthwash, 10 Softsoap For Men, 10 Crest toothpaste, 10 lip balm, 10 bottles hand sanitizer, 5 Gold Bond lotion, 3 pkgs toothbrushes (5 per), 2 large cans Gold Bond Powder, 2 large cans talcum powder, 2 pkgs. tissues (10 per)

Camp Ramadi

Box 1

4 boxes Kellogg's Twistable Fruit Flavored snacks (6 per), 3 pkgs. Juicy Twisters, 10 boxes Slim Jims (5 per), 2 boxes Nips hard candy - Butter rum, Choc. Parfait), 20 pkgs. Act Two mini bags popcorn, 1 box Ritz Crackers & Cheese (15 per), 1 box Oreo Cookie Snacks & Cream (15 per), 1 box Mix N' Go Fruit Punch drink mix (10 packets per), 2 boxes Crystal Light On The Go - Lemonade, Strawberry Ice (14 per).

Box 2

1 box Little Debbie Honey Buns (6 per), 2 boxes LD Donut Sticks (6 per), 1 box LD Maple Cream Pies (6 per), 1 box LD Banana Nut Loaves (6 per) 1 box LD Coffee Cakes (6 per), 1 box Nips hard candy, 2 boxes Scooby Doo Fruit Flavored Snacks (4 per), 2 boxes Fruit & Grain bars - Oatmeal, Apple Cinnamon (8 per), 6 boxes Slim Jims (5 per), 3 boxes Crystal Light On The Go - Iced Tea, Raspberry Ice (14 per), Orange (10 per), 1 can Country Time Pink Lemonade (makes 8 qts.), 1 can Kool Aid Tropical Punch (8 qts.)

[patriciaruth]

Oh, boy!

What great stuff you are sending.

The goodies I'm getting for Ramadi to go in as fillers with the DVD movies/TV series aren't so imaginative...mostly drink mix, some cookies.

[patriciaruth]

Fabulous! Those cold paks will be VERY welcome!

And so will the other fun stuff, although I don't know yet if they have a microwave there at there new location near Tal Afar. I'm trying to get email contact with them but haven't succeeded yet.

[patriciaruth]

Can anybody volunteer to get in the mail by Saturday some more Slim Jims for our Stryker unit near Tal Afar. We're coming up 50-100 short.

A box of 100 costs around $14 at our local grocery warehouse and fits in a flat rate priority box (5x8x11) so postage would be $8.10.

Also cans of potato chips ($1 each at Walmart) are light and so more easily sent priority in a box a bit bigger than a flat rate box. We could use a dozen more for Stryker near Tal Afar.

They deserve to celebrate the 4th of July!

If you have already sent boxes for 4th of July, please disregard this notice.

:-D (Still smiling from the good news last night!)

[Dante3]

BUMP

[Just A Nobody]

Stryker unit near Tal Afar

Is this my regular contact? If so I'll do the chips and slim jims as I was looking for other stuff to fill my boxes.

(Still smiling from the good news last night!)

Ditto! ;*)))

[patriciaruth]

You have FReepmail!

[Just A Nobody]

Back at ya!

[Dinah Lord]

Mmm, kattracks.

Nice selection of munchies. I had a snack attack just reading it!

Cheers - Dinah

[kattracks]

Oh my, I hope you're ok. You need to keep a package or two of goodies handy for just such an emergency.

Thanks :o)

[patriciaruth]

I had a bit of fun juggling the contents to keep the insurance cost under $100 for each box. Taking a bow here.:-)

You can scroll up to see what others are doing or wait for the update later next week. Donors will be credit at the quarterly statement at the end of June. Cheers!

Mailed June 10, 2006, to Camp Ramadi (to unit that used to be at Tal Afar), 4 boxes
Box 1, insured $90.64, postage $10.40
Star Wars Trilogy, boxed set of episodes IV-VI: A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi (Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Alec Guiness, Harrison Ford)
Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace (Ewan McGregor, Liam Neeson, Jake Lloyd, Natalie Portman)
Star Wars II: The Attack of the Clones (Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christiansen)
Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith (Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen)
Ft Apache (John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Shirley Temple)
2 cans 1 lb cashews
1 box Chicken in a Biskit crackers, medium size
1 magazine: Sports Illustrated, Wade’s World

Box 2, insured $98.92, postage $10.40
Alien quadrilogy boxed set: (Sigourney Weaver)
Alien
Aliens
Alien3
Alien Resurrection
Dr. No.(Sean Connery)
Goldfinger (Sean Connery)
Diamonds are Forever (Sean Connery)
Wedding Singer (Adam Sandler, Drew Barrymore)
Dodgeball (Vince Vaughn)
1 box Chicken in a Bisket crackers, medium size
2 canisters 8 qts sugared Country Time pink lemonade
2 magazines:
Weekly Standard, Polygamy and Democracy
Army, June, 2006
Kleenex tissue in zipper lock bag

Box 3, insured $99.48, postage $10.40
24, Season 2, boxed set (Kiefer Sutherland)
Scrubs, season 1, boxed set
Without a Paddle (Burt Reynolds)
Galaxy Quest (Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Tony Shalhoub)
2 boxes 1 lb. Chips Ahoy ~41 cookies each
2 boxes 10 Raspberry Ice singles
Kleenex tissue in zipper lock bag

Box 4, insured $99.72, postage $10.40
Stargate SG-1, Season 1, boxed set
Stargate SG-1, Season 2, boxed set
Stargate the movie (Kurt Russell, James Spader, Jaye Davidson)
From Russia with Love (Sean Connery)
2 canisters 8 qts. sugared Country Time pink lemonade
1 magazine: Popular Mechanics, the truth about BioFuel
Kleenex tissue in zipper lock bag

[Enterprise]

I hadn't thought much about insurance. The pink lemonade mix I sent cost about 12 dollars, and the Kool Aid was worth another 15. However you did get me to thinking about the box itself. In retrospect it doesn't seem to me that it will stand a lot of stress or pressure. The next time I send something like the pink lemonade I will tape them together so they at least stay as a solid unit. Maybe I will also try reinforcing the box with some tape, although I am limited because the P.O only wants clear tape.

And now that I am on my soapbox, I think it is time for someone, somehow, to make this process simpler for people mailing packages to servicemembers. Perhaps Congress has to get involved, but the customs form is unnecessarily complex. It should basically contain information like From, To, Redirect, and a description of contents and value. Perhaps a small check-off box for "insurance" and "gift," but most of the customs form is irrelevant. I just want a form that makes it easier to mail things to the people in the Military. I don't need a customs form.

[Libertina]

BTTT Have an operation going in WA as well. You are great PatriciaRuth! :)

[patriciaruth]

The boxes I insured had DVD's in them, which are higher risk items for theft, and would be expensive to replace if there was a postal accident that damaged them. (I once got a gift back that was in a plastic bag and waterlogged, with a note it had been in a boxcar fire in New Jersey.)

The insurance for items valued above $50 also has tracking, another thing to discourage theft. I just like to have that extra edge as my boxes often contain 4-15 DVD's and have to travel across the whole continent to get to the Army Post Office.

I didn't insure the party and food items for the 4th of July, however. The value of them does not make the insurance worth it to me, and I don't recommend it for anyone else who packs reasonably carefully.

I try to make the box solid by packing it full, using magazines and travel Kleenex and other items to fill in the empty spaces. And I try to have something solid to serve like a pillar in the box to prevent the areas with the softer items from being crushed when these boxes are stacked floor to ceiling in a plane cargo hold.

When I get nuts or drink mix or other items that are in cardboard cans with metal bottoms, I use wide tape around the ends and end over end to help prevent their splitting open at the cardboard to metal seal, and I also then put them in plastic bags so that if they split open anyway, the contents may be prevented from pouring over everything and can hopefully be salvaged.

I'm not sure our soldiers level with us when stuff arrives damaged.

The contract mail carriers now are probably a lot gentler than when the Army itself was transporting the packages overseas.

[Dante3]

I have had some mail returned because the PO Box number was changed or different by one or two digits - the rest of the address was correct. I guess there are so many soldiers that the APO cannot check the addresses. Still, it took a couple of months for the mail to be returned.

[Enterprise]

So far I haven't had anything returned. With the latest mailings I was able to put a "redirect" address in the event that it doesn't get there in time (thanks to patriciaruth). I know that some teddy bears I sent got to the address and I received a couple of thank you letters. I have to believe that most of what I have sent got to where it was intended.

[JoyjoyfromNJ]

(1) You're right that the military mail handlers don't have time to cross check the addresses on the boxes. Heck, I've had regular mail returned here in the USA because the apt number was left off (There were only 3 apts in the building!)

(2) On the customs form, lower right, there's a section which says "re-direction if address not good". For my troop care pkgs, I choose "other" and handwrite, "give to any chaplain or commanding officer". (EXCEPT for the boxes via this program for which patricia ruth gives other instructions). I also don't send out hugely expensive boxes of DVD as our illustrious coordinator does.