In My Own Words

I went to the post office on my way home from work this afternoon. I had one rather large, heavy-ish box that was going parcel post  Space Available, and four Priority Large Flat Rate Boxes ready to go, but since I wasn’t sure how much the large box was going to cost, I took it [...]

Jack is over at Paul’s house chopping up a black walnut tree for firewood, and I’m here at home working on care packages.  I think it’s a wonderful way to start a brand new year; hopefully the recipients will think it’s not too shabby, too. LOL! I’ve already got one box filled up, the customs [...]

Christmas is behind us now, and between donations of items from some folks at work and raising $600 through my “Help Raise Dough for the Troops” efforts, I managed to mail off 17 Christmas-specific care packages to Warriors in Iraq and Afghanistan. (That equals $203.15 in postage, using the large flat rate boxes.) I’ve also [...]

It’s Christmas Eve at my house, but in the sandbox and the ‘Stan, it’s Christmas Day. I wish our troops were all back home with their families, as I’m sure they wish the same even more than I do! I was chatting with one of our Warriors over there, when in mid-conversation he said “Mortars [...]

First I got an e-mail from one of my Marines in Afghanistan, with a picture attached. The picture is of him raising the Tennessee State flag at the FOB where he’s stationed. He has friends in Greeneville (which is where Nolichuckey Bluffs is; our favorite vacation spot) that he’s sending the flag to. In the [...]

I got another FREE MAIL today, from a Soldier in Afghanistan. The letter is dated August 10th, the postmark is September 4th, and here it finally is, in my mailbox on October 22nd. Obviously Cletus the Slack-Jawed Snail carried that one. I can understand the date the letter was written and the postmark being so [...]

We’ve been supporting our troops long enough now that we’re finding ourselves with quite a number of “repeaters.” I was going through the contact updates on AnySoldier, not that we need another to support at the moment, when I found a name I recognized as a Soldier we adopted in 2007 when he was deployed [...]

If you’ve been paying attention to the news lately, you know there was a pretty big battle over the weekend in Afghanistan. 8 of our troops made the ultimate sacrifice. One base was completely destroyed and 56 men lost all of their belongings except the clothes on their backs. The Army is working to replace [...]

Anybody who reads the news, watches it on TV, or listens to it on the radio, has to be aware that one of America’s Warriors, PFC Bowe Bergdahl, is being held captive in Afghanistan by Taliban forces. I can’t even begin to imagine the fear he faces every day that he spends as their prisoner, [...]

I took the $50 gift card my ex-boss Jo gave me and bought 4 solar camp showers, 4 bottles of Suave for Men body shampoo, and 4 shower puffs for our Warriors in the Korengal Valley of Afghanistan. That takes care of their entire wish list; now I can send more “random” type care packages [...]