The Gun Counter

An aquaintance knows a young man who'll be heading to Afghanistan and probably Iraq next year (the same one I mentioned in another thread on the recruiter lying). We'd like to send him a care package, and I'm looking to find out what should go into it, and what shouldn't.

The young man in question is in the Navy, he's received medical training (wants to be a paramedic when he gets out), and he'll be a "Sand Sailor" so it sounds like he'll be a Corpsman.

blank CD's and batteries are th top of the list for someone that isnt in a combat role... in a combat role, mag springs are a good thing...

Books, dvds, non-perishable/non-crushable snacks.

Personal care items - razors, deodorant, lip gloss, sunscreen, etc

Beanie babies and small stuffed animals - great for making friends with the locals

ETA: Don't put personal care items with the snack items. Mountain Breeze is a great scent for deodorant, but a lousy flavor for cookies.

I'm reminded of a comment by a veteran of the Civil War. He claimed that reading material was very much in demand...and suspected that a great opportunity had been lost by not providing copies of classic literature.

He might have had a point...and I would toss in copies of just about ANYTHING not prohibited.

How about a camping stove and on of these. If he's sent to Camp BFE it might come in handy and I don't think mogas would be too terribly hard to find.

I was involved in an effort to send care packages to UK troops last year. I auctioned off most of my book collection and that raised about $1600 ( thanks to a bidding war amongst some patriotic folks who were paying much more than the books were worth ) in total the guys raised about $8000 and sent out hundreds of parcels.

The depressing thing about the appeal was that we had a wish list from our blokes and very high up on it was toilet paper. Our army, starved of cash and equipment by the socialist Labour government, can't even supply them with enough toilet paper.

On the upside, we can send them pr0n. Probably we shouldn't, but we can

An external hard drive. The bases have extremely large shared drives, and there's no copyright laws! (Or if there is, they really aren't followed well in other countries)

Highspeed, I really was hoping that I would get to work with some Brits on my upcoming deployment, and now I really hope I do!

1) G-dspeed and good luck

2) Working class Brits have a strange ironic sense of humour. Brit squaddies carry this out to the N'th degree. I think you'll enjoy it once you get used to it.

3) G-dspeed and good luck

4) If you meet an intel bod from the UK Joint Special Forces Support Group called Neill, thank him for the Wiley-X goggles he sent me, but point out that I'm unhappy with the amount of sand in the pouch, the lack of tinted lenses and one of the sidepieces for wearing them as sunglasses was missing. It's not acceptable and unless he makes it good his blokes won't get another care package ( see point numero 2 )

5) G-dspeed and good luck

I've been thinkin' as of late that I'd like to see one of the US mil sites do a special care package drive for some of our allies in Afghan and Iraq. There are guys in my squadron who've done some running around with British sailors and Marines back when we TDYed to Diego Garcia. All our guys who went over said that the Brits were great people.

I got some mad respect for a lot of our allied militaries. The Australians and the Canadians are capable of some amazing things considering how little they have. Its a shame that the politicians have vandalized these proud organizations.

everything Chris said.

+1000 to the External Hard Drives. here the only ones the PX sells are way over priced for their size. digital media is king here. Movies, Music, and E-Books in anything from PDF to TXT files.