troop letter: Doc

March 25, 2009

Wow, if there’s one thing you can always count on the ****l’s for is it’s CONNECTIONS… Bob, I’m very happy to take you up on the offer. That would help morale while we’re running 24/7 ops.
I like the cowboy night in particular, too. After all, we are a cavalry unit and even today when they were awarding the combat infantry badges and a couple of combat medical badges there were guys wearing our signature stetson hats that make up part of our dress uniform.

We’ve had quite a few purple hearts awarded in our unit already, also.

I’ll take whatever you want to send me. We’d be interested in the cigars as well! That can go to our headquarters element and would be perfect. You can send the boxes to me directly at my address below since I’ll be embedded in the unit at least through mid-July.  It does take about 2 1/2 weeks for things to reach us since we’re up north in Mosul, somewhat end of the line so to speak.  We are slowly but surely strangulating the guys throwing grenades, planting IED’s and driving around in vehicular IED’s but we’re still in the thick of a lot of combat operations for the next few months. Thankfully the citizens are finally sick of it and turning them in (better late than never) and they realize the city is now a much safer place to live in, hopefully for good. As reported in the papers & online, the Iraqi Army is finally getting it together and now heavily involved in all of the above.

Please let me know if there’s any other info you might need, and thank you so much for your thoughtfulness, generosity & support.

It’s been my honor to keep the guys and gals as healthy as possible over here, and a big part of that in my opinion is their mental health outlook.

Doc