Our new NPTT contact is now at FOB Falcon near Baghdad, and I’ll post some email excerpts below.
Anyone who can volunteer to send them enough lemonade mix and cans of potato chips or chocolate chip cookies for 14-15 men for the Fourth of July by Saturday, June 21, please let me know.
Care packages of the same for Bagram air field in Afghanistan are also needed. I am packing up now many bags of trail mix (thanks to donation from jtill) to send them, as well as the HBO DVD miniseries “John Adams” based on the book by David McCullough for their Fourth of July present. An excellent series covering the winning and keeping of our Independence!
We have not been able to establish a new contact with a Stryker unit, and our former adopted unit has left for home and is hopefully safely there now. I will write a letter to the “commander” of the new Stryker unit (I only have the unit name and APO, no name) and see if I can get another Stryker contact. Our last adopted unit saw a great deal of action in southern Baghdad and Ba’qubah, had 7 KIA in their battalion last year, and had great responsibilities during the turnover to the new unit.
Mailed June 16, 2008, to NPTT at FOB Falcon, with help of donations from jtill and manna.
1 box, insured $197.02 (value $212.02), postage $13.55
14 DVD movies:
Independence Day (Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman)
National Treasure (Nicolas Cage)
Die Hard trilogy (Bruce Willis)
Airforce One/In the Line of Fire (Harrison Ford) (Clint Eastwood)
Alien/Predator (Sigorney Weaver) (Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jesse Ventura)
Gettysburg/Gods and Generals (Jeff Daniels, Martin Sheen, Tom Berenger)
Open Range (Kevin Costner, Robert Duvall, Annette Bening)
The Jackal (Bruce Willis, Richard Gere)
Robocop (Peter Weller, Nancy Allen)
4 Books:
The Great Raid on Cabanatuan *
Winston Churchill, The Last Lion: Visions of Glory 1874-1932 (William Manchester)
The Gods Themselves (Issac Asimov)
Red Mars (Kim Stanley Robinson)
Personal Care:
9 travel size Gold Bond body powder
16 Lip Balm SPF 30
11 travel size Artificial Tears
8 cartons 4 window clear Fly Trap paper (nontoxic)
Decorations:
1 small American flag
1 American flag pinwheel
3 short sprays of red, silver, blue stars
*From SwatTeam, valued by Amazon at $24.09
THANKS to fanfan for sending care packages to the defenders of Kandahar!! (see post above)
Email excerpts from NPTT now at FOB Falcon:
...have read 1776 and I did enjoy it immensely. But I haven’t read the book on England and Russia. I would love to read the Mars series. Frankly I am running out of reading material and need something new. I don’t have much time to read, but I always pick up a book and read at least 30 minutes before I go to sleep.
...Hi Patty,
I’m so sorry for not emailing sooner. It has been a very busy couple of weeks as we are getting to know the area of operations and all of the personalities that are key players. I’m glad to say that I think that we got a lot of things accomplished in the short time that we have been here.
We just got word that we will start moving to FOB Falcon next week. On Tuesday we will stop by the FOB and get a new mailing address. Yes, we did get your package. Thank you very much. The blue gel packs have already come in very handy. Last week was a little warmer than usual and we expect the same temperatures in the coming week. Thank you. Please relay my warmest thanks to Amy as well.
...I’ve seen the Mars books but I haven’t read them. One of the things that irritate me is when book stores (and the PXs are notoriously bad for this) don’t stock the entire series. The might have Blue Mars but they don’t have the other two. How did you like the rest of the Dune series? As you say, very deep thoughts. Right now I’m on a military history kick. I just got done reading Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire from the 1st Century AD to the 3rd (mouthful of a title) and I am now reading D-Day.
Patti, I can send cans of Pringles to this group. I can also send some personal care items.
bttt
UPDATE on 4th of July for BAGRAM air field, Afghansistan.
Enterprise sent out 15 canisters of lemonade mix to Bagram yesterday, to make up 10 gallons each of pink lemonade, regular lemonade and strawberry lemonade.
Mailed June 19, 2008, to Bagram
1 box, insured $73.43, postage $13.65
1 TV miniseries (7 episodes) “John Adams” based on book by David McCullough
9 American flag pinwheels
1 box CL On the Go singles orange
1 canister CL Raspberry Ice drink mix cups
1 bag with 5 sample packets cream, 4 sample perfume paper
1 strip stickers for all occasions
I’m still up to my hips in trail mix here, but hope to have that out on Monday.