Posted on 01/21/2006 3:06:06 PM PST by 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.
You are doing good work. Bless you.
Mailed September 2, 2006, to Bagram
1 box, value $60.71 postage $8.60 included delivery confirmation
26 individual packs of 15 Wet Ones (donated by my optometrist)
1 bottle 90 generic Pepcid 10 mg antacid pills
2 bottles 100 generic Extra Strength Tylenol
1 box 20 medicated Bandaids
1 spool tan thread
1 package 20 sharp long needles
1 pad 50 sheets lined stationery
25 small envelops
2 pens
Mailed September 2, 2006, to Camp Ramadi
1 box, insured $69.99, postage $10.40
1 drawing by AnnaZ’s son
4 DVD movies:
Flight 93 (A&E/Fox movie for cable TV)
Tombstone (Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, Sam Elliott)
Batman Begins (Christian Bale, Liam Neeson, Michael Caine)
Walk the Line (Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon)
16 oz Bag Tropical Trail Mix
1 plastic Bottle 48 oz. Hershey’s Syrup
10 individual pkgs 15 Wet Ones in zipper lock bag (donated by my optometrist)
1 pad 50 sheets stationery
12 envelopes
1 black gel med pt retractable pen
Filler:
1 bumpersticker: “America is too Great for small dreams” Ronald Reagan
Time line of 9/11 events
1 Toothbrush (donated by my dentist)
4 TicTacs peppermint
3 travel Kleenex
12 loose Werthers Original sugar free hard candy caramel drops
3 Tootsie Pops
Well, thank you so very much.
take care.
(Brave American soldier, Ramadi)
----------------------------------------
What a sweetie, eh?
Great work, both of you! :-)
I sent this back.....
Dear Troop Supporters,
I am under internet worm attack making it difficult for me to access Free Republic. It may replicate and send itself via email, so I have warned all my soldiers and friends NOT to open any email from me, especially if it is more than 1-2 KB long.
I'll be getting a new email address and using another computer, but it may take a few weeks to sort this out as I am hipdeep in another project that is going to take priority.
Here are the last emails from the front. Please let kattracks, nina0113, and SwatTeam communicate with the soldiers until I get straightened out.
Anyone who can get some soccer ball air pumps, please send to A Company.
I'll be in and out of touch.
From A company at Baghdad
Pat, How are you doing? We are doing fine and making the best of the extension. The Soldiers have sent letter thank you for all of the support you have given us. It has made this whole thing better. We are starting over in this new location (Baghdad) and was wondering if you could send us a few air pumps with needles, so that we can blow up the soccer balls that we give out to the children. This is a part of winning the heart & minds. Thanks again for all of your help.
From C company at Baghdad:
We have recieved the Blue Ice. Again thankyou for all the support. It is such a good feeling knowing that there are people out there that support us.
BUMP
I'm accessing my FR page from another computer, because I can't get access to FR on the computer with the worm.
I believe the worm came in mass mailing emails I received from a person I just began corresponding with over the last two weeks. They were trapped in my spam filter, but I stupidly opened one after seeing it was from him, not twigging in time to the clue that the email was 58 KB in size or more.
It is unknown to me if that person was the unlucky victim of an attack as was I just by happenstance or if it was someone who knew the work that person does and who deliberately sabottaged his computer and thus all those he corresponds with.
The worm was activated first when I accessed a link at FR to an article by David Horowitz about the Shadow Party cabal that is controlling the Democrat Party now.
That's all I know at this point, except I have warned everyone in my mailbox not to open my emails. I've cancelled that email address and am getting a new one.
The worm does not infect in that way. The worm infects by opening an attachment or invading your network.
I picked up 14 boxes of a Vitamin World product just like airborne today and will ship out in the next couple days to Bagram.
Also got the magazines requested, Economist, Stuff and FHM while we were out in the city. Our Stryker captain's wife was recently hospitalized (doing okay now) and he left Iraq for compassionate leave. Not sure when he will be going back. Enterprise, hold off on mailing more to his APO till I get more word.
I can borrow this computer to communicate occasionally, so I won't be totally out of touch, but hope you all can manage things, like finding someone to get a couple soccer ball air pumps with needles for A Company.
Cheers!
Patty
At the start, it seemed like there was a donation box in just about every store where they were collecting items to be sent to the troops. Around here, at least, we don't see any of that unless I'm just not going to the right stores to see the boxes. Of course, there have been several disasters where the collection boxes were used for other things and they seemed to just not pick back up with Iraq.
Please tell me all you can about the BD B. R. worm 0.08a
Patty
I ordered 3 DVDs to be sent to you and the eta is 7 Sept. Still haven't heard from Ramadi about the other DVD. Hope you get your worm problem taken care of.
It doesn't show up on any of the radars. You could have the name wrong
I may have remember the code number wrong.
DB or BD ? Blade Runner 0.80a may be the code.
Thanks for checking.
I've got my laptop down at the shop getting dewormed. May take a day or two if they can do it. I'm using another computer now to access FR.
See post above.
I'll try to let you know when the package arrives.
Some air pumps are on the way. Today I mailed two flat rate boxes to A Co. Each box contained:
3 air pumps with extra needles
12 cans of mandarin oranges
6 granola bars
2 boxes (10 ea) on-the-go lemonade
10 individual pack Oreos
1 Banana Boat 30 SFP sunscreen tube
I'm back!
Death to Worms!
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