Jeep Strokers

Hey all -
My wife has been "adopting" Marine units in forward areas of late (mainly Afghanistan,) hoping to help keep up their morale until they rotate back. If you've ever been "deployed forward," you know what that can be like - even getting a letter can be a real treat!

Mainly, that's what she's doing - writing letters where she can. She's even done a newsletter, she's calling it the "REMF Reader" ("REMF", in this case, being "Rear Echelon Mother & Friends." Yes, she knows what "REMF" /really/ means...) She's hoping to make it a semimonthly, something they can hand around and read. Some cartoons, some jokes, some sports scores, and "just a little bit of home."

Things being the way they are, postage keeps adding up. What I'm hoping to accomplish with this is simply this - if guys can kick in a buck or two every now and again, we can put that into postage to keep the boys' spirits up. I want to check interest before I go into more detail (and figure out how to work it easily on my own end...)

Of course, they're also asking for "a little taste of Home" in various ways - some of them would like some decent smokes (as I just told someone in a PM - higher-higher has forgotten all about Black Jack Pershing...) some want some coffee other than the stuff that comes in issue MRE's (Taster's Choice decaf, as I recall. Yech - and what's the point?) and maybe some more candy than they're getting (MRE's are notoriously thin on the stuff, and it also gives them something to hand around to the kids.) Some units also do a fair bit of PR to win hearts and minds - and want little toys - like party favours - to hand around to the kids.

And, while we're about it, if anyone wants to pass along a letter to "Any US Marine" over there, just email it to me at dragonland2001 AT yahoo DOT com and I'll print it and pass it along as well when we mail out.

No, we're not a charity. We're not a 501(c)(3). We're just a couple of citizens who are trying to do what we can to support those who are fighting the fight that we are no longer able to. Whatever your feelings are about our involvement in Afghanistan, just remember that it's a /political/ decision that they're there - I'm reasonably sure that most of the guys in-country would rather be in any of half a hundred other places! But, since they're there, we should at least let them know that we're thinking of them...

If I see enough interest in this sort of thing, I'll post up the email address that can be used for donations. Deal?

JDK

Update - http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.p ... t245224716

If you really want to wow them, send them sauce. BBQ, Hot sauce, hot giardiniera, spicy mustard, anything that they can't get from the PX (All we could get was tobasco, got old quick) I had a jar of hot giardiniera my friend sent me and I took it everywhere so I could put it on everything. We had decent food where I was at, but it was on a weekly rotation. So after month I was sick of it all.

I appreciate what you are doing, I was there in 2008 and we were all starting to feel like the country had forgotten about us. I can only imagine how they feel now, I hear more about plastic surgery on the news than I do about our troops over there.

Thanks and keep it up.

SGT D.

uscav_Scout wrote:If you really want to wow them, send them sauce. BBQ, Hot sauce, hot giardiniera, spicy mustard, anything that they can't get from the PX (All we could get was tobasco, got old quick) I had a jar of hot giardiniera my friend sent me and I took it everywhere so I could put it on everything. We had decent food where I was at, but it was on a weekly rotation. So after month I was sick of it all.

I appreciate what you are doing, I was there in 2008 and we were all starting to feel like the country had forgotten about us. I can only imagine how they feel now, I hear more about plastic surgery on the news than I do about our troops over there.

Thanks and keep it up.

SGT D.

I know - whenever we go anywhere to grab lunch, the restaurant always ends up "donating" sauce packets and the like. Get lots of stuff from Taco Hell, for instance.

Fairly regular trips to Big Lots for stuff for them (and us!) - and I look for hot sauces that come in plastic bottles or packets (to survive handling.)

MREs are a major improvement over C rations - although I do miss the canned caraway cheese! - but they still need help. And Tabasco can still get monotonous sometimes.

I did my time in 1991 - first round over there.

MSG J. D. Kelley, USAF/SOC. (So yeah, I understand!)

Well... I'm in Bagram right now. Overall this place is not nice, but there are many places down south in Afghanistan that make Bagram seem like a five star resort.

I agree about sending sauces. We have great food for Army chow, but after a while it does start to taste the same.

Homemade cookies and brownies are great too. The usually survive the trip well.

Sausage and crackers can be a very nice treat... even people that wouldn't normally eat them.

Really anything from home that's made with heart is great. Store bought things are good too.

We do notice that we aren't in the news much anymore, and the USO tours seem to keep getting smaller and smaller.

Thanks much for thinking of us.

SCRMBLD wrote:Well... I'm in Bagram right now. Overall this place is not nice, but there are many places down south in Afghanistan that make Bagram seem like a five star resort.

I agree about sending sauces. We have great food for Army chow, but after a while it does start to taste the same.

Homemade cookies and brownies are great too. The usually survive the trip well.

Sausage and crackers can be a very nice treat... even people that wouldn't normally eat them.

Really anything from home that's made with heart is great. Store bought things are good too.

We do notice that we aren't in the news much anymore, and the USO tours seem to keep getting smaller and smaller.

Thanks much for thinking of us.

Yeah - we hear about Linsey Lohan coming unstitched again (who cares? Who is she, anyhow?) but never anything about you guys.

I'm too beat-up to keep the fight up anymore, or I'd probably still be out there doing it (if I hadn't been retired due to wounds, I would have been destined to be a lifer. I'd probably have been in until age forced me out - 18-62, 44 years in service. Probably topped out as a Chief, since I wasn't interested in becoming an ossifer...)

She's retired from SCPD for a blown knee. So, we can't keep up the fight anymore - but we try to support the guys who are!

I didn't think we could send homemade stuff through the Post to APOs, what with all of the new regs from B. anthracis scares and all - I'll have to look into that.

But, we pillage through our local Big Lots and Target about fortnightly (why? Because we can get more for you guys for our bucks, support more of you, and the stuff is still pretty good! I usually end up stripping something-or-other off of the load to check and make sure...) and we're trying to ship monthly (APO/FPO Priority Post - so it generally gets there. It's marked "Treat as Abandoned" on the Customs forms (!) so someone over there can get it.

(Why for are Customs forms necessary for something that doesn't leave US control anyhow?)

Don't blame the USO for the tours falling off - it's just that it's not "in" to be on them anymore. Which is a pity - part of Bob Hope's fame was because he was in every USO tour he could get into. He's the only individual in the United States who had been made an "honorary veteran" by Act of Congress - funner, because he was a Briton!