Christmas Packages to Iraq

Christmas packages to Iraq are always exciting, especially when not expected. For Christmas of 2008, it is already too late to send a package and expect it to get there by Christmas but send it anyway. I always loved getting stuff from home.

It is good for Americans to remember our military serving in Iraq. No matter what our personal feelings are and the bickering that goes on in our government, we need to remember that the military is only doing what it has been told to do.

Christmas packages to Iraq are important to the morale of our military people serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and all over the globe.

But let’s not forget that there are many American civilians serving with the troops in Iraq, too. It would be nice to send packages to Iraq for the civilians who are doing just as much as the military people to bring peace and stability to Iraq.

You may be asking yourself, “Who do I send a package to?”

I would start with family and friends. I would call them and see if they know of anyone who is serving in the Middle East and would like a Christmas package to Iraq.

This is especially true for civilians. There is no contact to find out where civilians are working.

But for military personnel there is another option.

If you live close to a military base, you can contact that base’s Public Affairs Office.

Let’s suppose you want to send Christmas packages to Iraq for a military person but you do not have any idea how to go about it or who to send them to. Below are some steps that should help you send care packages to Iraq or to any other place where our United States military personnel serve.

But first let’s look at what to send.

Books are okay but usually the bases have MWR libraries that have tons of books. These are usually secondhand so if you want to send out a newly released top seller in your Christmas packages to Iraq, it would be appreciated.

Probably the best thing would be DVDs in your Christmas packages to Iraq. I was always looking for movies to watch. Go for the most recent releases and you will make someone happy—but try to stay away from horror. They see enough of that. I would even suggest Christmas movies.

Chocolate is also a much appreciated gift in your Christmas packages to Iraq. Chocolate is usually hard to get. The PX can get a shipment in and in several days it will be gone. Generally speaking, most other food items are readily available.

But one thing that is always needed—phone cards. The Army Air Force Exchange Service or AAFES for short, has set up on their website a way for anyone to order a phone card for military personnel. Go to www.aafes.com

and look for the icon that says "Gifts for our Troops."

Click on the icon and it will give you a screen with several options:

ANYONE can support a deployed service member by

1. Sending Prepaid Phone Cards.

2. Sending Gifts from the Home front.

These two sites will give you a host of ideas on who to send gifts to and how.

The PAO can help with what to send to the troops. No alcohol or anything pornographic in your Christmas packages to Iraq.

How do you find the PAO office closest to you? Go to the internet and type in “United States Military Bases”.

A screen will come up that offers several choices for finding military bases. Select one. From here they will probably break it down by Service—Army, Navy and so on.

Click on one of the Service Icons.

You can try this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_military_bases Here they break it down by Service and whether you want a base in the United States or overseas.

I used to be in the Army so I clicked on Army in the United States. A list popped up of all the bases in the United States. They are listed by state. I am from Texas so I scrolled down to Texas and found the names of the bases in Texas.

I went to the internet and typed in Public Affairs Office at Fort Hood. Of the choices presented, I selected Fort Hood Public Affairs.

From here I searched until I found the heading Fort Hood PAO contacts. I clicked on this and a list came up showing all the PAO offices at Fort Hood.

Which unit(s) are in Iraq? I would need to contact each name and find out. That PAO would also be able to give you the unit address in Iraq. They will probably not give you an individual name, but policies will vary from place to place.

As you are looking, you may ran across the initials MNF-I. This stands for Multi-National Forces-Iraq.

Also, it would be nice to remember the families. The military families feel the loss the most during the Holidays.

So you have a name, you have a gift and now you want to know how to send Christmas packages to Iraq.

Believe it or not the United States Postal Service does an excellent job of delivering packages to the Middle East. My wife has sent me packages and I have gotten them anywhere from 7-10 days. But speed of delivery will depend on where the person is located.

Bases that have airstrips will get packages much quicker than those that do not. For instance, when I was at Baqubah our mail would come in to Camp Anaconda. Then it would have to be put on a convoy to Baqubah. Usually the convoy ran twice a week from Camp Anaconda or Balad as it is also known. Some of the bases are referred to by the names of the city they are close to.

Our camp supported three Forward Operating Bases, so for these military personnel it took even longer to receive care packages in Iraq.

The bases that have airstrips will usually have other commercial companies doing deliveries. There is Fed-X, UPS, DHL and National Air Cargo just to name a few. They can get items to your loved ones generally, a few days faster then the USPS but for a high price. But there are some drawbacks.

If the base has an airstrip, then the delivery will go fairly smoothly. The people who work for these companies will find the person to whom the package needs to go. Make sure you put a building number down, a DSN number and an email address. I have never failed to get a package that was sent to me especially my Christmas packages to Iraq.

Or you could even do a will-call. They will hold the package at their office until the person comes and picks it up. If they have the e-mail address, they will e-mail that person and let them know the package has arrived.

If the base does not have an airstrip then it gets a little more difficult and dangerous. In this case a local driver delivers the package to the front gate of the base. There the guards try to locate the person. Now there is a chance that the driver will be hijacked before he gets to the gate.

The other dangerous part of this is that if the driver gets hijacked, the insurgents will have the return address of the individual who sent the package. This is not a good thing.

So all in all, your best bet is to stick with the United States Postal Service. A common misconception is that the USPS has a motto--"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” The USPS has no official quote.

The following is found in an article from the internet title, “History of the U.S. Postal Service.”

“This inscription was supplied by William Mitchell Kendall of the firm of McKim, Mead & White, the architects who designed the New York General Post Office. Kendall said the sentence appears in the works of Herodotus and describes the expedition of the Greeks against the Persians under Cyrus, about 500 B.C. The Persians operated a system of mounted postal couriers, and the sentence describes the fidelity with which their work was done.

Professor George H. Palmer of Harvard University supplied the translation, which he considered the most poetical of about seven translations from the Greek.”

Perhaps the words “Neither bullet nor rocket, nor IED or insurgent…” could be added to this inscription to describe those delivering the mail in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Plan early and your Christmas packages to Iraq of love and appreciation will get to their destination in time.

The USPS site gives you an idea on when to mail the Christmas packages to Iraq so they reach your loved one or someone you just want to show appreciation to.

Even though Christmas has come and gone it would still be great to remember the military personnel who are away from home. It is a great morale booster to get a package with "stuff" and a letter in it. And if you want, put some photos in there of yourself with a note about how much you and other Americans appreciate the sacrifice that our troops and our civilians are making in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Christmas packages to Iraq could be a yearly thing. Don't forget Valentine's Day and Easter. If you plan on sending chocolate, do it soon. Temperatures will start rising in the Middle East and by the end of March-early April it will begin to get too warm to mail chocolate without it melting.

All of the mail is shipped to the Middle East in 20 foot steel containers. I call them connexes. Others call them mill vans. Even though the outside temperature may only be 80 degrees F, the connex can get up to 100 degrees F inside.

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