OT- Troop Care Packages

[Big Bore 94]

What are popular current requested care package items for our troops in Kandahar

[bsaride]

Don't know about current, but I sent a whole collection of Louise Lamorre paperbacks to
our guys during Operation Desert Storm.

[JReed]

Go here. http://anymarine.com/. I know one of the family's that runs this organization. The husband and wife are both prior Army and have 2 kids currently in the Army their other son is enlisted in the Marines out of my office. Great organization and will answer any questions you may have.

They are not just Marine they support all branches.

[KSRtrd]

My boys ask for baby wipes and toilet articles, there is not much in the way of PX overthere.

[Rusty]

We were sending them from church and we always put in hard candy to fill in any voids left in the boxes. stuff like peppermints and butterscotch.

[HEAD0001]

We ship a lot of them from our local VFW POST. We put all kinds of little things in them. Things that you use every day for hygiene and such. And we put hard candy in there. And anything else we can get local businesses to donate. The biggest problem is shipping. We use USPS Priority Shipping. But they do not cut us a brake on the shipping price. So we use their large one rate box. The last ones we sent out we had 100 yo-yo's. I do not know how they went over when they got them. But we can only hope they liked them. I do know they really like playing cards and dice. Especially the ones with the naked.................Tom.

[papasan]

When my son Mike was in Afghanistan
he requested candy(to hand out to the
local kids too), Pringles chips, beef
jerky. slim jims, vienna sausages,
and other canned foods since they had
access to a microwave.Baby wipes and
foot powder were high on his list
also.

UPDATE...My son Spc Mike Fleury who
was injured in an IED attack Mar 27,
and i requested prayers for his recovery on the forum, has been at
Fort Bliss for the past 3 weeks. He is leaving for Fort Carson 2 May. He is doing well.He has to still wear a back brace, and his ankle seems to be healing well, but will have to rely
on crutches or wheel chair for a while before he can come home on leave. Thanks again to all who replied with their thoughts and prayers.

papasan

[Hobie]

Glad to hear your son is doing well.

[MrMurphy]

Depends where they are.

Big base (Bagram, Kandahar) you can get literally just about anything you can in the States. If he's in a FOB or small COP (combat outpost) it's back to basically WW2 conditions, with satellite (satphones and some limited internet at times for email).

Baby wipes (the "Hooah" man-sized military versions do well, but scentless wipes in large numbers are good for general use).

Gun lube (CLP/Breakfree is common, but Slip 2000 is excellent) and cleaning patches are always typically in short supply.

Anything to read. Doesn't matter what it is, bored troops will read Home & Garden if it's what is available. Gun magazines (no porn), car/fishing/hunting/men's health stuff is popular.

Candy that won't melt. Beef jerky. Extra toilet paper makes good "filler" that's usable if you're just trying to not have stuff bash around in the box and not weigh too much.

GOOD socks (Thorlo, Fox River, Smartwool, or equivalent) if your guy is combat arms they will love you. Thorlos and Fox Rivers make patrolling survivable foot-wise, same for Smartwool, they're heavily cushioned, wick sweat well and keep your feet intact. Not cheap, but 1 good pair lasts a long time. I've had 3 pairs of Fox Rivers that survived several-times-per-week wear for years.

When in doubt.........ask. Afghanistan (and Iraq) vary so widely in conditions that you don't know what they're facing. My one deployment was to Qatar, basically an armed vacation. We got care packages and 90% of it we couldn't use (rear area base, well supplied). We passed it on to other troops headed further in theater, and our guys on fly-away missions (guarding aircraft hopping all over the middle east landing on dirt strips in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Africa) gave a lot of the candy away to kids (hearts and minds you know).

A bro of mine, recently back from Baghdad for a year, on our first deployment was on a flyaway to Afghanistan, landing at strips in literally the middle of nowhere, usually at night. He brought along some goodies and passed them on to a Special Forces team they were resupplying miles and miles from anywhere somewhere in NE Afghanistan. As far as troops go, they get anything they really want being SF guys, but the extra little goodies hit the spot. They treated him (an Air Force Security Forces grunt) like a minor god, at least for a few days.....they appreciated the gesture.

[Ysabel Kid]

Glad to hear your son is doing well.

+1 - thanks for the update!

Never thought of hard candy as "packing", but it makes sense!

[Big Bore 94]

Glad to hear that your son is healing. Thanks you all for the ideas. I have been out of the service for fifteen years and I knew things may have changed. The Post Office said if using the large flat rate box make it at least 4-5 pounds. If not there are less expensive ways to mail. After filling all the spaces with hard candy and using enough duct tape to be almost air dropable, it weighed 18 Lbs. Thanks Again!