troop letter: I am greatly amazed

February 07, 2010

One of the biggest needs they have is help with the postage

Today, I made a visit to my friend Bob Williams at Support The Troops. I had gone to donate some product to his favorite cause. Some of you will remember that I mentioned this organization a few months back. Bob gave me a complete tour of their operation. Bob and his staff and as many volunteers as he can muster spend their days packaging huge care packages that they send to our troops that are serving in the various locations in the Mid East.

I am greatly amazed at their operation and the amount of donations of products they receive from numerous companies. These donations include such items as cookies and crackers, popcorn, jelly beans, cigars (including humidors) and instant hand warmers for the cold winter nights. Bob told me he has learned that the nurses over there have learned that if they tape one of these hand warmers to the underside of a toilet seat, it keeps the seat warm for twelve hours. They also receive donations of numerous personal items and even coffee. It sure is hard to build up a grudge against your competitor when they are making large donations to such a worthy cause. In addition to care packages loaded with goodies, Support The Troops tries to fill special request from individuals or units. Some of these items such as microwaves, toasters and coffee makers are bought using donations from supporters.

One of the biggest needs they have is help with the postage to deliver these items. For some insane reason, Congress requires all of this stuff to be transported by mail. Even if there is a military plane with room to haul some of this booty, it is not allowed. The military is not allowed to transport any of it. They must pay full postage to get it there.

Once again I am sending the WEB address to all of you so you can investigate this work for yourselves with hopes that some might be able to help with the postage. Also, you might write your elected officials with a request that they sponsor a bill to eliminate the postage for items sent to our troops in harms way or allow it to go by military transport.

In a separate E-mail I am going to forward some of the letters that Bob receives from the troops so that you can read some of them and see just how much it means to them to receive these packages.

Her are a couple of shortcuts for you to click on to see for yourself.

Thanks,

C