Many of you have asked what items you can send to me while I'm deployed. I want to first say thank you in advance. I would never presume that anyone would send me anything other than their love and support (except for Ang and the kids...you guys have to send me stuff:)), but know that if you chose to anything you send is always appreciated and shared with other soldiers I live and work with.
I'll share a quick story about a gift I received that moved me more than anything (except maybe those wonderful pieces of artwork that Trey and Audrey like to send me LOL). For those of you that don't know, Derek Duncan is my big brother from my fraternity at the University of Kentucky. He's the one that recruited me into Lambda Chi Alpha and recruited me into officiating basketball (which I still do today!). We spoke for the first time in many years on the phone while I was mobilizing. Wonderful conversation and baseball and politics the two topics that we both love so much. Well, a couple of weeks later I received a small package. It was filled with individual cards written my the youth volleyball team coached by Derek's wife Jenny. Each was inidividually written and signed by about 8 players. I'm sitting here with tears in my eye even thinking about those little notes right now. I pull each of those notes out one by one and read them at night and my spirits soar each time. Amazing stuff....
Anyway, little things like that are many times what a soldier needs to remember why we're here and what we're fighting for. The future of freedom for young children. However.....if you would like to send other nice goodies, here's the kinds of things that I need or would enjoy.
First, the don'ts...... no magazines with "suggestive" material and no alcohol. These are stricly prohibited "in theater" (war zones).
The Do's.....
- colgate toothpaste travel size
- gel shaving creem travel size
- sun screen
- enery bars/breakfast bars
- iPod gift cards (I can get music and rent movies.)
- paperback books
- hard candy
- any homemade goodies wrapped or ziplocked very well
- phone cards (Domestic cards are fine. I can call through a US switch to use them.)
- other than that's the rest is up to your imagination :)
One more....many of you have probably heard of the PX. The full name is AAFES Post Exchange. It's about the only place we spend money. :) We buy snacks, drinks, esstentials, stuff like that. You can buy gift cards at https://thor.aafes.com/gcs/default.aspx . These are great to include in care packages. It's interesting here on post that they don't have any change. They have bills, but no coins. You get these silly little AAFES card board pieces for coins. They look like play money. I've found it better to shop with gift cards or my credit card to avoid these things that I'll never use.
Don't worry about sending DVDs. I snagged about 600 movies from another soldier and put them on an external hard drive, and we get to see all new releases for free at our theater.
Please do me a favor and should you read this and send something, post what you sent on this blog. This could be a wonderful way to share and for all of us to talk about the wonderful ideas you guys have to help soldiers like me.
Thanks again to any and all. I look forward to conversing with you in some shape or form over the next year.
(BTW, I'm limited on what pictures I can take, but less load up. They're pretty weird about taking pictures here. However, should I go into Iraq at all, apparently you can take all the pictures you want there.)
Monday, May 25, 2009
My First Week at Camp Arifjan
My trip began by reporting to Atlanta Airport at 12.00pm to check in on Wednesday, May 20th. 8 hours later we climbed in a plane. Thank goodness for the USO and WiFi. :)
http://www.uso.org/
We flew on a DC-10 charter flight with Omni an airline I'd never heard of till then. The nickname of the flight is the "Freedom Bird". It's the flight that takes soldiers to and from the states for leave/RR. I was lucky enough to get a first class seat. These seats were based on first come first serve by rank. They started at Colonel (O-6) and had seats all the way down to O-2 (LT), E-8 (Master SGT), and W-3 (Chief Warrant Officer). I fall about in the middle as an O-4. We flew 6 hours to Shannon, Ireland, took a break to refuel and change crews for 2 hours, and then flew 5.5 more hours to Kuwait City, Kuwait. Combine that with the 7 hours we lost from Atlanta and that's a 18.5 hour trip. Not to bad. :)
We loaded up on buses at the Kuwait International Airport and headed over to Al Al Salem Air Base for our initial inprocessing.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/ali-al-salem.htm
It was a strange ride in that we weren't allowed to open the shades on the bus or listen to personal music players. Strange rules in a much, much different country.
We unloaded at Ali Al Salem Air Base and grabbed a bite to eat at McDonalds. (Yes, they had McD's even in the middle of the desert.) Here we caught a really nice break. We were supposed to take a bus from the Air Base to Camp Arifjan. Each of us had 3+ bags filled with all the wonderfully heavy equipment the Army had issued us. Our compadre with Space Ops, Major Phil Speth, acquired an SUV to pick us up. No small feat when you consider he had to borrow the vehicle (not easy), get someone to come with him as VC (vehicle commander), come armed with ammo (you can't leave post without being armed), and get a mission letter from a LTC (O-5) or above. Great job Phil!
The trip to Camp Arifjan was about 1 1/2 hours. Crazy trip. No real speed limits. Kuwaits pass on shoulders and many times there were 3-4 lanes of traffice doing 120K (about 90 mph I believe) with no lines.
We arrived a Arifjan about 0030 (12.30am) Kuwait time. Now keep in mind that this is 7 hours ahead of est and 8 hours ahead of cst. We checked into the open bay transition barracks in the dark. Thanks to Phil again and to MSG Stewart (VC) for travelling with us and helping us lug our stuff to our bunks (2nd floor). I finally crashed about 0130.
That was the trip. I'll be back to talk about the 1st week later. :)
http://www.uso.org/
We flew on a DC-10 charter flight with Omni an airline I'd never heard of till then. The nickname of the flight is the "Freedom Bird". It's the flight that takes soldiers to and from the states for leave/RR. I was lucky enough to get a first class seat. These seats were based on first come first serve by rank. They started at Colonel (O-6) and had seats all the way down to O-2 (LT), E-8 (Master SGT), and W-3 (Chief Warrant Officer). I fall about in the middle as an O-4. We flew 6 hours to Shannon, Ireland, took a break to refuel and change crews for 2 hours, and then flew 5.5 more hours to Kuwait City, Kuwait. Combine that with the 7 hours we lost from Atlanta and that's a 18.5 hour trip. Not to bad. :)
We loaded up on buses at the Kuwait International Airport and headed over to Al Al Salem Air Base for our initial inprocessing.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/ali-al-salem.htm
It was a strange ride in that we weren't allowed to open the shades on the bus or listen to personal music players. Strange rules in a much, much different country.
We unloaded at Ali Al Salem Air Base and grabbed a bite to eat at McDonalds. (Yes, they had McD's even in the middle of the desert.) Here we caught a really nice break. We were supposed to take a bus from the Air Base to Camp Arifjan. Each of us had 3+ bags filled with all the wonderfully heavy equipment the Army had issued us. Our compadre with Space Ops, Major Phil Speth, acquired an SUV to pick us up. No small feat when you consider he had to borrow the vehicle (not easy), get someone to come with him as VC (vehicle commander), come armed with ammo (you can't leave post without being armed), and get a mission letter from a LTC (O-5) or above. Great job Phil!
The trip to Camp Arifjan was about 1 1/2 hours. Crazy trip. No real speed limits. Kuwaits pass on shoulders and many times there were 3-4 lanes of traffice doing 120K (about 90 mph I believe) with no lines.
We arrived a Arifjan about 0030 (12.30am) Kuwait time. Now keep in mind that this is 7 hours ahead of est and 8 hours ahead of cst. We checked into the open bay transition barracks in the dark. Thanks to Phil again and to MSG Stewart (VC) for travelling with us and helping us lug our stuff to our bunks (2nd floor). I finally crashed about 0130.
That was the trip. I'll be back to talk about the 1st week later. :)
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