Keep the Socks, Send the Jerky
on 03/23/2007 at 10:42 AM
Having been sending since March of 2003 -
books (especially paperbacks), decks of cards, magazines, dvds (Wally World $5.00 bin does have a use after all),cds, ziplocks filled with those ‘travel’ size toiletries (esp. good for grunts who have to carry their stuff often), seasoning - unusual or ‘new’ flavors of stuff (trial sizes are good for anyone stationed anywhere overseas) -to get a taste of ‘new’ in America, cammie colored ts and socks (CAV Store or Ranger Joe), Girl scout cookies (kill two birds with one stone), for those with a connection to a Civil affairs person - stuff for the Iraqis (clothes, toys, school supplies, basic medical supplies etc).
Tabasco is no longer needed (it is part of some MREs now) and realize that a lot of our Troops are in established areas - so the old, baby wipes, water, etc is not quite as necessary.
Take a moment too - we used to buy the re-sale of dvds at Blockbuster for my son, test ran them because of the 10 day return policy - we stumbled on some great movies that the msm ignored that were funny, interesting, and just plain good. So we all benefited from the experience. For my son, I also bought a stack of cd cases (I think it was 25 for $5 -red, white and blue) as he was a grunt, space is limited and it ended up taking two boxes just for the books, dvd cases and junk he collected over there (mailed to mom, thank you).
There are a couple of sites
http://www.troopssupport.com/
is one that lists places and groups that send to Troops (for when we get lazy and just want to donate)
But hey, I’ve been doing it for 3 years already. [Not to mention the 2 years my daughter was in Okinawa or the 1 year my son was in Korea or the 2 years my hubby was on an unaccompanied - so I’m getting a bit lazy these days]
