Those wacky mail room guys

Every military unit has a very important group of soldiers whose job is to make sure the mail gets delivered. Like the US Postal employees back home, they get snarled at when them mail arrives late, damaged or not at all. But we still love 'em for sure when something special arrives from back home.

Yesterday we received the most wonderful surprise – a large shipment from the Soldier’s Angels! Thank you so much for the wonderful and gracious donation of Purple Heart backpacks, microwave popcorn, instant oatmeal, freeze-pops, candy, and seasoning.

I must admit the Soldier who is our mail clerk was cursing my name when he went to check the mail yesterday and discovered that many of the packages had my name on them. Oh how the tune changed when it was discovered that the contents of the packages were for our wounded warriors and the Soldiers assigned to the team.

Thank you again so very much. We’ll send pictures out soon of the team filling the backpacks and enjoying the popcorn at our next movie night.


Jana L., Nurse
FOB Fenty, Afghanistan

Another message from the medics

Why do many thousands of Soldiers' Angels volunteer their time, their money and their endless love for our soldiers?

From a nurse at the 47th CSH:


Thank you for everything you and your organization have done for us. The fact that you all are there supporting us and ensuring we are able to have something from home mean the most. For all those soldier in our unit who families cannot afford to send them care packages, those single parents with no support and our wounded soldiers we say THANK YOU.

GOD Bless you
J.....

yup, that's about it.
-rog

Once the military's busiest trauma hospital in Iraq, 'Baghdad ER' closes down

(See my buddy MaryAnn's story about the closing of the Ibn Sina hospital by the 10th Combat Support Hospital unit here.



Ibn Sina, named for a 9th century scholar, was opened in 1964 by four Iraqi doctors with the aim of becoming the country's premier medical facility. It was later taken over by Saddam Hussein's regime in the 1970s, and then made Saddam's private hospital. His eldest son, Odai, was hospitalized there after being wounded in a failed assassination attempt.

After the fall of Baghdad in 2003, the military transformed Ibn Sina into its trauma center in central Baghdad. Its reputation grew in HBO's "Baghdad ER," a 2006 Emmy Award-winning documentary.

The closure has brought many of the soldiers of the 10th Combat Support Hospital full circle. The unit was deployed at the hospital at the height of the war's carnage in 2005 and 2006. The 10th Mountain (CSH) returned earlier this year and learned they would be shutting it down.
By CHELSEA J. CARTER (AP)



My niece has been deployed with the 10th CSH since last year, and they just moved out recently, and will be coming home by this Christmas. Soldiers' Angels has been supporting this hospital for several years. At the height of the surge last year, we were sending them massive support, including 200 of our First Response Backpacks per month. Thankfully, as the war is winding down, that need has diminished in Iraq, at least.




-Rog

Thank you from a wounded soldier

Casualties in Afghanistan are very heavy and mounting. Emergency assistance is needed to supply every injured American with a Soldiers' Angels First Response Backpack.


Wounded American Soldier at Bagram, Afghanistan Hospital with Soldier's Angels First Response backpack

On September 26, we received this thank you email from a wounded soldier.....

I just wanted to say thank you. I was WIA on 24sept09. when I got to Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, there was a Purple Heart/Soldiers' Angels bag in my ICU room when I woke up. It is so nice to know that after what I saw, what I did, and what me and my crew went through, there were people who already had us in mind. I sleep with the fleece blanket I got, [and] the hygiene bag was wonderful, especially since mine burned to the ground with my vehicle. And the letters and cards from Karate for Kids in Utah made me smile. On behalf of myself, the medic for my team, my TC, SGT Nicholas W...., my gunner, SGT Jerry S....., and most of all, my driver, PFC Heath K..., who had the worst injuries of our crew, thank you so much.

SPC Helen L. R...

For the next few months, we urgently need your help to fill our First Response Backpacks. We have enough empty backpacks, but we need Angel Power to help fill them by sending supplies directly to the Combat Support Hospitals.

For complete directions, please email me HERE with the subject line "BACKPACKS." Tell me what you can send and how many of each, and I'll tell you where to send it.

NOTE: The following items are the only items that we need right now. All items must be new and unused. Please do not send clothing sizes small, 2X, or 3X.

Clothing and Blankets:

-Sweatpants and Zippered Hoodie Sweatshirts (L, XL - grey, black, dark blue)
-Lounge pants/sleep pants/pj bottoms (M, L, XL - any color or pattern)
-Plain T-shirts (M, L, XL - crew neck, any color)
-Men's Boxerbriefs or Boxers (M, L, XL). Please do not send "briefs".
-FlipFlops to wear while showering (men's large sizes)
-Twin-sized fleece blankets (any color) or Blankets of Hope (click for details)
-COMPLETE Personal Hygiene Kits containing all of the following (sealed in a single gallon-sized ZipLoc bag) This is a great project for a family, church or Scout activity!:

Toothbrush
Toothpaste (any size)
Bar Soap or Body Wash (any size)
Shampoo (any size)
Dental floss
Body Powder
Body lotion (any size)
Lip balm/chap stick
Nail Clippers (large or small)
Disposable razor
Shaving cream (travel sized aerosol cans or tubes of shaving gel)

-Thanks! Rog
Medical Support Director

The great Halloween candy project

For the second year, our neighborhood and the Geneva, Illinois elementary schools are going to band together to donate and send a bunch of candy to our troops overseas. I had this idea last year to ask everybody to donate their left-over candy after Halloween.

We decorate our front yard for the big day, in ways that would alarm the neighbors any other time of year, in order to advertise the candy collection.



We put a box on the front porch the day before, and here's the surprise. When kids came trick-or-treating on Halloween, they saw the sign "candy for the troops", and a lot of them dumped their own candy right into the box. You gotta love that.

The Williamsburg and Harrison Street schools also collected candy, we ended up with over 1,000 pounds. Yes, that's right. 1,000 pounds of candy X 12 billion calories and a few hundred cavities in the process, I suppose. But a lot of happy soldiers.

So this year, we're going to repeat the project and aim even higher (and for more cavities in the process, but it's all good).

- Rog

Where have all the flowers gone

Mary Travers, 1936 - 2009




Her message of peace, love and brotherhood will be missed.

Rest in Peace,
-Rog

The great Holiday care package project - 96 days to go!

There may be a lot of shopping days left until Christmas, but we have only 96 days to collect items for our soldiers holiday packages and ship the packages overseas. By November 1, 2009, our goal is ship 180,000 packages to the war zones.

How did we come up with that number? Simple, one for every single member of our military who will be away from home this Holiday season. We are sending every deployed service member in a combat zone a care package with holiday greetings, including goodies and a beautiful homemade blanket.

Monetary donations are always accepted as we need postage money to ship our
holiday packages. Our website www.SoldiersAngels.org has a paypal option - click donate on our site or mail a check to us.



How Can You Help?
Challenge your school, PTA group, teachers, parents, senior citizen centers,
businesses, church, college, radio & TV stations, and newspapers. Get the word out tell everyone you know you are collecting hot cocoa packets to provide comfort and warmth for our military.

Every item collected is that much closer to filling a care package with
holiday cheer.

We need 180,000 of everything:

Hot Cocoa Packets
Hot Cider Packets
Men's White Socks (sizes 9-15)
Candy Bars (any size)
Hard Candy
Candy Canes
Power Bars
Nuts
Christmas Cards- signed but not sealed
...and we are open to just about anything that could be a "stocking stuffer"

Handmade Blanket of Belief - directions on our website
here



If you live east of the Mississippi, please ship care package donations to:

Soldiers' Angels
112 Greenhill Road
Ramseur NC 27316
(Dropoff avail. M-F, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.)


If you live west of the Mississippi, please ship care package donations to:

Soldiers' Angels
914 Tourmaline Dr
Newbury Park, CA 91320

Soldiers’ Angels is a volunteer-led 501 (c)(3) non-profit supporting the
troops since 2003
Help us meet our holiday goal of 180,000 by November 1, 2009
Soldiers' Angels