Helping a Marine 2/9

[Ladymimi]

Dear Friends I receive ann email from a Marine mom and I am truying to help..!! this is the mom email please read:the name and adress can not post if you will like to adopt this Marine please email me to send you hes info:

My name is Suzi. I am a resident of Las Vegas and Edith Garcia referred me to you for assistance for a care package to my Marine son stationed in Afghanstian. I am unemployed at the moment and any consideration would be appreciated. His name and address are below.

Should you need any further information please let me know. They deployed 7/22/10 and are expected back the end of Feb., 2011. There are 38 members in his unit. He is requesting a lot of stuff, as said most of them are married, broke and get nothing from home. He requests food such as cans of ravoli, chucky soup, anything microwavable, pop corn, etc. Said they are very short on food and he lost 10 pounds already. That puts him under 150 at this point!!! This certainly is different than the first two deployments in Iraq. I can barely afford to feed myself and now have to send him food. Not sure what happened to our great country!!!

Again, anything is greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,
Suzi McHugh

[foreverproud]

Ladymimi ...

Please have your friend also contact Operation: Care and Comfort by email and request that packages be sent to her son.

Here's the link:
http://www.operationcareandcomfort.org/occtroopsupport/index.html

Operation: Care and Comfort packs and sends off care packages to the troops every month to all branches of the Armed Forces serving overseas. A parent may put in the request for a son or daughter who is already deployed. She just needs to provide all the information necessary.

My son received a package 5 out of the seven months he was there ... and they are great .... great care packages. Here's a link to pictures I've taken on packing days.

http://jeannerenepoetry.com/myblog/?tags=operation%20care%20and%20comfort

The next packing day is Oct. 10th ... so send the email right away!

Sending you a PM too ... I've got a couple of packages just waiting for an address.

[Ladymimi]

Thank you soooo much Jeanne ..!! God Bless you sister..!!! I'm on it.!!

[foreverproud]

Ladymimi and Suzie ... my pleasure.

Many blessings to your Marines!

[Ladymimi]

I did it already Jeanne..!! not shure if did it right but did it ..!!! send the request. thanks thanks

[foreverproud]

I'll be there Sunday .... so I'll double check. If there was any problem or if his name is not there .... I'll get back to you. :)

[foreverproud]

We packed today and I checked if the LCpl. had been registered. We couldn't find his address, but I had brought it along just in case. So the LCpl. will get a great package... maybe even two, since it is possible his name was already there.

I've sent him a couple of packages too last week.

Packing Day OCC Oct. 10, 2010
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b280/jeannerene/American%20Flag%20and%20other%20patriotic%20images/IMG_8349-1.jpg

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b280/jeannerene/American%20Flag%20and%20other%20patriotic%20images/IMG_8352-1.jpg

There's a care package in there for the LCpl. !!
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b280/jeannerene/American%20Flag%20and%20other%20patriotic%20images/IMG_8358-1.jpg


Parents and friends with the holidays coming soon make a special effort to send out some care packages!

[Ladymimi]

Jeanne..God bless you..!! I see the pictures and just make me want to crye out of happynes to see all the boxes ..!! Carepakeges ..Thank you for sending to Suzi's Marine some ..!! Our Marine ..!! Thank you ..Thank you .!! Marine Mom say Thank you ..!! Semper Fi ..Pictures just say everithing..!! Love for our Marines..!! Just have no words, but gratitude for the help for this Marine ..Love you Sister.

[Backhaus 1103]

His unit replaced mine so I know how he feels. There's food...only MREs and going to the bazar to buy chicken, rice, onions, potatos...unless things have changed in about two and a half months. Care packages are nice to get, but if he eats MREs he'll be fine. I gained weight over there because I ate about 4 MREs a day haha.

[Backhaus 1103]

Oh almost forgot, tell him to make friends with the ANA(afghan army) and ANCOP(police), they make food for their guys everyday and it's really good...also a break from MREs. He should also try to get some of the afghans mre meals, they're really good compaired to ours.

[Ladymimi]

I will tell her to tell her Marine, I talk to her on Sunday, She was very upset and worried, her son Base got hit really bad .!!.some of the guys where taken to Germany, by the grace of God her son have not call..but she know nothing of hem right since ufther I post..!! so we, all Marine moms know ..no news is good news ..so right now is Praying and waithing for news .!! Thank you so much ..!! I'l keep you posted..!!!

[Ladymimi]

Backhaus, Thank you for your Service and God Bless you ..!!! I do remember my son gut really buff with the MRE's then ..I stared sending hem stuff so he can cook and Tortillas and tamarindos candy ..they like a lot Mango with Chily suckers and Tuna ..!! I eat one when he was deployed ..so I fill wath he fills and taste wath he taste ..Lord have Mercy I urge my self to send more stuff to eat he was in a small base Black horse..habbania..!! no longer exist. 1/1 Alpha Co

[USNAviator]

Lady's and Mom's thank you for all you do. I wanted to post this as evidence that there is a need now for help. We are coming into the holiday season, we have a high unemployment rate. It's tough to give I know

Group sending supplies to troops needs support

By Kirk Moore - Asbury Park (N.J.) Press
Posted : Monday Oct 11, 2010 18:15:38 EDT
TOMS RIVER, N.J. — The old garage in back of the National Guard armory is set up like an assembly line. Volunteers move along rows of plastic totes, picking out everyday essentials and small luxuries for soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Lip balm. Toothpaste. AA batteries for night vision goggles and music players. Snacks and sunblock. On this day three dozen boxes are going out, addressed to individual soldiers; a unit at Bagram Air Base, Iraq; and remote forward operating bases in Afghanistan.
But nine years after 9/11, volunteers with this long-running program say their supply chain is withering on the home front, running dry from donor fatigue and the worst recession in 60 years.
“It’s like people have forgotten there’s still a war going on,” says Ronnie Micciulla of Red Bank, coordinator of American Recreational Military Services Inc., the Shore-based nonprofit that sends personal supplies to troops overseas and helps their families at home.
For years ARMS volunteers relied on a donor network for goods and financial help with packaging materials and shipping. “We average from $13 to $18 a box, more if it has to go cross-country to ship out of California instead of Jersey City,” explains volunteer Joe Marone of Berkeley.
But donations dried up this year, and Micciulla says the group is trying to restart its local outreach.
“What we’re really looking for is to get the schools involved again,” Micciulla says. “We can provide speakers to groups to explain what it is we do, what we need, and we can arrange for pickups.”
The group put on a big push in 2008-09 to support the New Jersey National Guard’s deployment to Iraq, and it is trying to mount a new effort for up to 900 Army, Marine, National Guard and Air National Guard members scheduled to ship out soon, said volunteer Toni Seinfeld.
Afghanistan is a stark and austere place for soldiers, and the group is getting requests for such basic supplies as sheets and blankets for field hospitals, Seinfeld said.
“We went to see Marines graduate [from a training program] at Fort Dix. They’re dropping them off in the hills to do recon,” she said.
Even on larger support bases, “they can’t run to the store, because it’s a 25-minute walk,” said volunteer Julianne Perry, whose husband John recently went to Afghanistan with the 4th Infantry Division’s 183rd Maintenance Company, from Fort Carson, Colo.
When a package arrives, “it’s like a 5-year-old kid with a new toy,” says Marone, whose two sons serve in the New Jersey National Guard and were on the last Iraq deployment. It’s more than a connection with home, he says: “It’s a break in the monotony and tension. It takes their mind off what they have to do, when they have to go out [on patrol] the next day.”
For the Jewish holidays in September, the group assembled a package for Jewish service members in Afghanistan and delivered it to Air Force Capt. Raphael Berdugo in Kandahar, a chaplain who serves with the 87th Air Base Wing out of Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst.
Among many e-mailed thank-yous and testimonials, the group got this one from a New Jersey Marine in Albania: “The Girl Scout cookies have helped numerous Marines, the bandages you’ve sent gave me piece of mind, and covered a few minor scrapes. Items I didn’t think I’d needed, well I used ’em.
“Those stupid Taco Bell packs you’d sent, we never ate such good, yet unhealthy, American food, the A-1 Steak sauce wrapped in diapers made those burgers taste great. The toothpaste that was just great to have because I didn’t trust the stuff out in town, and the sunscreen came in especially handy out here.”