USO Canteen FReeper Style....Monday Mail Call....May 13,2002

FRiends of the USO Canteen FReeper Style and Snow Bunny

[Snow Bunny]

Our troops need our support and encouragement. They are away from home, some for the first time, and usually lonely or discouraged. It is important for us to reach out and help them in the same way we would want someone to reach out to our loved ones if and when they are in the same position.

They answered their call and we are answering theirs offering them the USO Canteen FReeper Style each day and thanking them for serving.

This is IN Coming Mail from some of those serving now.

We at the USO Canteen FReeper Style, a running thread at Free Republic, are proud to support our Military. The mail comes in from contacting some of our Military Bases, Marine Corps Leagues , and friends and family of those serving now. Also from responses at the wonderful P.O.Box that 68-69TonkinGulfYatchClub has made so easily available to each of us here at Free Republic.

They are writing to those that frequent the FReeper USO Canteen to thank you for your support.

I work with damage-control and small-boats on a guided missile destroyer,I just want to thank you at the Canteen for your support. Thank you for being there for all of us. Sometimes you feel like you are all alone out here, then I get online and get to read the Canteen.
My girl broke up with me right before I left. I guess that could be the story for a lot of us .
My mom is all I have back home and she can’t afford a computer . She writes to me when she can and it is good to hear from her.
A buddy back at the base told me about an email he got from a creature with a heart, named Snow Bunny. It had the web address for Free Republic and told how the founder had been a Navy man and how everyone respected him. That he was a heck of a guy and had this place at Free Republic called the Canteen.
One lonely day I checked it out and sat here with , darn it anyway, tears rolling down my face.
I never saw anything like it in my life. OH I have surfed the web in school before I enlisted, but this is a whole new ballgame. The Canteen is my home now away from home.
All of you make a difference and your support means more then you may know. One of the things that makes it more real to me then just a place on the web are several things I’d like to share with you.
You know you all can be serious and then on a dime laugh and have fun and I like that. I like the way the day gears down just like life at home does. When you have done your business in the day and sit around with friends in the evening and cut up.
None of us here could be intense all day and the way the Canteen moves into night is why it feels so much like home too.
Thanks for being there .

Mark A.

Command Master Chief , right before 9-11 my wife and I had just gotten settled in our new home. I have 3 kids and a beautiful wife. Then I was transferred to Norfolk and then shipped out.
I missed Christmas but I know being here has helped preserve our freedom for the future. Only have a minute this time to write Snow Bunny. I know that other stuff I asked you not to pass on helped me to be able to share when I needed it most.
This time I do want you to pass something on to someone.
Whoever has a fan here and please tell whoever that for me. I wasn’t sure if whoever was a man or woman at first, but then I watched the reactions and the tenderness and could tell. So thanks for what you bring in your basket when you visit the Canteen.
I read every thread all the way through and it is powerful stuff. Thanks Snow Bunny for caring so much about us and making a place I can see others that care too.

Stephen A.

Air Force Sgt

Hey Snow Bunny, I am Charlie, just Charlie OK !!!!
Thanks for the Canteen from my heart .
I guess you can call me a lurker but that sure sounds weird. I can’t enter in but I can tell you I have read every day of the Canteen since March.I can’t get to it every day, so I go back and see what I missed when I do have the time.
Some of the ones I like are the one you call HiJinx, 4TheFlag,and you call this one Tonkin. Tell that Tonkin guy the Air Force knows how to spell. LOL , Victoria Delsoul and a mystomachisturning. You have to change that name beautiful girl, with your bubbly personality , AFVetGal one of our own, and this one gets me every time, Deadhead. That one reminds me of a rock group, but I have a crush on Deadhead and SassyMom.
Snow Bunny thanks for making it so I could write to you. Someday maybe I can tell you more about me. But you have been supper about it with a friend of mine and he said Bunny is AOK.

Hang in there and we will too.
Our friend,
Charlie

Navy Hospital Corpsman 1st Class

It is because of you all and your support and caring about us, that I am strengthened and makes me proud to serve our country. Please tell SAMWolf , my brother could use his talents. I saw where he was the head scrounger at the Canteen. I think my kid brother is headed in that direction when he gets in the Army. Bad boy turned “Bad Boy” in many ways and a heart as big as a ship.
Whoever whoever is, could you tell this whoever being that I have saved and sent a lot of things from whoever to my nephew and his wife. They have the time to pass it on to the rest of the family. Tell whoever thanks for the fun stories and jokes.
Snow Bunny, thanks for doing this for me. I never met anyone like you, not sure how I could thank you enough and Billie. So please know that you are making a difference out here and if your ears are burning it is because we are talking about you in awesome ways. God just gave some people bigger hearts and you Snow Bunny and Billie are two girls that got them.
God bless you all at the Canteen and thank you Free Republic for being all to so many of us.
James K.L.

Air Force 1st Lt

Mr. Jim Robinson and ladies and gentlemen of the Canteen. Thank you for your magnificent support and dedication, day in day out for all of us. You make a difference in my life. I printed out a copy of the logo for Free Republic with the Eagle and all and have it inside on my plane. Just so you know it is right next to a very sexy blonde. I didn’t think you would mind. Apple pie and moms and sexy blondes are all American.
I just wanted you to know your efforts are noticed and not just by me.
Your support means we have Americans that care about us and that goes a long way believe me.

Tim B.

[SassyMom]

Here ya go Sam! Relax and enjoy! :)

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

"Anyway, I did miss the lot of you!"

*HUG*

You didn't leave COB1 behind somewhere did you?

[MistyCA]

OH! There you are! I have been hunting high and low...walking from bar to bar, looking beneath the smelly ole fish crates, peeking into every hatch and porthole, sneaking up on every poopdeck, walking from stern to stem risking my life in doing so! Whew! So glad you finally showed up!

[LadyX]

Okay, Bad Boyz - whatcha been sayin' 'bout the LadyX?!
Betcha been up to mischief without my watchful eye!

Sorry to have been MIA. Tomorrow I have yet another assignment.

Going on a walkabout for a couple of days to visit my sister, Anne, at a remote location -
that's the Cover Story, anyway, oMmi sending me on a Secret Assignment to procure - -
oops! almost blabbed!!

(no, Scuttlebutt - it's not a double-sized waterbed to replace all the the hammocks..:))) We wimmin won't fall for THAT one)

[SAMWolf]

Thanks that hit the spot.

[SAMWolf]

Us? Up to something? Not us!

[LadyX]

So Cobby is AWOL AGAIN?!!
Maybe he was left behind and is getting another tattoo to match the USMC one - Semper Fi on the other arm.
Or did we haul anchor while he was scuba diving?
Yeah - that could be it..:)))

OR - he could be devising that new Missile Launcher for next week's Battle Plan!

Who knows - doesn't she??

[LadyX]

Major thunderstorms rolling in - need to sign off!

[SAMWolf]

Well AFVetGal, it looks like your yard is a good place to go Skwerl fishing.
What do non-resident licenses cost?
Maybe I'll drop by.

[Jen]

LOL! Come on down! Whatever the license fee is, I'll pay it for you. Just capture these varmits so my birds and I can live in peace. Jen

[Pippin]

Yeah! I'm back! was on the phone. can I come out to play now? giggle!

[Snow Bunny]

LOL....""Wheel of (Mis)Fortune" ......

[SassyMom]

LOL.... you and your squirrels..... hahahahaha. You need to get with my mother in law. The squirrels eat the pecans out of her pecan tree.

[Jen]

Let me guess, could you be going to procure one of these?

[Jen]

What does she do to defend her pecan tree?

[Snow Bunny]

Ok, stay safe..see you later ......but a BIG welcome Back LadyX.

[redhead]

Thanks! I come here, but usually just lurk. Just wanted to tell all of you how much I appreciate what you do here, and to tell the troops to "stand tall and serve proudly" (from my selfish son, who went into the Army kicking and screaming and came out a decorated Veteran. He said in a letter home one time, "Don't worry, Mom. I'm standing tall and serving proudly..."). Sigh...why mothers feel so proud...

[Snow Bunny]

LOL

[Snow Bunny]

ROTFLMHO....a Spam dryer..hahahahahahahahaha

[Jen]

No, Bunny, it's a SPAM 'washer.' You put the food in it and it washes the SPAM out.