troop letter: cranberry in a can

October 20, 2011

I think it is getting safe to send melt-able products like chocolate

Charlie Company supporters,

I apologize for the mass email, I am way behind on my ‘thank you’s’ and wanted to let you know that we have received your packages and are extremely grateful. We have received snacks, hygiene items, socks, magazines, movies and other great things. We enjoy them all and I make sure that I divide up the boxes between all of my patrol bases. I have a large company (bigger than a regular infantry company) and in our battle space we have a lot of ‘other’ help. We are the focus of effort right now and are taking the fight to the Taliban and disrupting their ability to move freely in our AO (Area of Operations).

Unfortunately we have suffered the most casualties in our assigned AO but we also have the most kinetic so it goes without saying that our casualties would be higher. There are places outside of our AO that actually have it worse and the injuries are more traumatic and horrific (i.e. - double amputations, etc).
We have had:
3 KIAs
17 MEDEVACs for IED attacks
8 MEDEVACs for gunshot wounds
2 MEDEVACs for Rocket Propelled Grenade attack

And that doesn’t include my NBIs (non battle injuries). I hope we don’t have any more.

I wanted to say that I enjoy reading about your lives. The stories of your children, events, trips, vacations, supporters, underwriters, schools are great things to learn about and remind me of the normal things back home.

I think it is getting safe to send melt-able products like chocolate (candy bars, or cookies). The regular M&Ms come in MREs so we have plenty of those. Oh, and yes – you can send pork products here (i.e. – it is safe to send canned hams). We have started to receive Thanksgiving items and are currently sorting so that we can deliver these items to our patrol bases. I am not sure if our higher headquarters will provide something like real turkey but we do have UGR turkey (turkey that comes in larger packaging – very similar to MRE meat). What we could use are the side items like the fried onions, cream of mushroom, instant mashed potatoes, cranberry in a can, canned green beans, stove-top stuffing, etc. Our guys still enjoy (since it gets cooler at night) things you can add hot water to like hot chocolate, cup of noodle, etc. They love getting regular potato chips like Pringles (they don’t crush as bad) and ready-to-eat tuna/chicken meals since they can stick them in their daypacks and don’t have a lot of prepping to do to eat them. 

In regards to how long the mail takes to get out to us. It takes about 2-3 weeks for the mail to arrive occasionally it takes 4-5. My company clerk sorts it at the battalion position and then we take it out to the PBs.

Again, sorry I could not individually thank each of you but with our current operations schedule, it is hard to find the time. I hope you all are doing great back home.