Hi Southwick,

I sent you an e-mail today, 4/14. 

Thanks, Mimi

SGT Christopher Gonzalez was added Feb 3, 08, and has been requested only 10 times.  I received a very nice email from him today; but then I felt sad for them when towards the end he wrote:

                       " We had thought that we had already been forgotten, since we hadn't
                        recieved any packages for a while; yours came as a nice surprise.
                        Thanks for your support ."
   
                         SGT Gonzalez, Christopher
                         A TRP 6/8 CAV
                         Senior Medic

Can anyone else offer support? 

Thanks, Maria C.

Zachariah Pyles   only 11 requests since 12 March 2008 and is contact for 46 males. He is a very nice man. He contacted me right away when he received my letter. I sent a box out yesterday. 
 

ZACHARIAH PYLES has a MILI-FRB packed up from us ready to go to the PO Friday mostly filled with 2 oz. trail mix and a few toothpaste and toothbrushes to finish filling out.

Gran

rosepeddles:

Robert W. Wentworth says they have not received anything in about two months.  He is contact for 50 males.

I forgot to post that my Mom and I had sent a Large FRB to Robert Wentworth on 2 March, so I was disappointed to see his update today, 17 April:

dear any soldier i have not updated my info. cause we are still ineed of this stuff. we have yet to recive any packages or letters. i am not sure what has happen but it has lowered our morale i will like to recive letters and packages for the people who support me so i can mail them back and thank them for the great job they are doing. the only person i have been reciveing stuff from is jill Duranceau and we have become great pen pals now but that is the only person i have recived from. i am sorry for the lack of updates but we still need this stuff

I'm not sure what the problem is... I think we'll send a letter and see if he gets that. Should I contact the Support Team about this? It seems like the address must be correct, if he's getting packages from the person he mentioned.

Gran,

Thank you for your help. I don't want him to think he and his group are forgotten. God Bless

Alison

RE:  ROBERT W. WENTWORTH post - I also am very surprised.  We sent them a large PM7 box on 2/28 and we even got an email back from them.  We sent another on 3/10, but have not heard from that one, and he showed up as having 35 requests on 3/9 when I made note as I prepared the last package. 

A female contact with another group had mentioned that they wanted us to correspond with them, but we haven't heard back from them in a couple of months after a separate letter and a 4th package with a letter in it, so I don't know what to think since such instances seem to be getting more frequent recently.

Gran

From Gran:  RE:  ROBERT W. WENTWORTH post - I also am very surprised.  We sent them a large PM7 box on 2/28 and we even got an email back from them.  We sent another on 3/10, but have not heard from that one, and he showed up. . .

May I suggest that you email him and advise him of these boxes you and others have sent.  Perhaps his address changed and he either didn't realize it or forgot to advise the support team. (It's happened.)  There are other reasons too; our mail to any troop can be "bumped" if higher priority items need to be transported first, as you know.  Or there may be a new postal unit transitioning into the theater; takes a bit of time to switch over.  And, least desirable, there have occasions of theft, either by third nationals or, *sigh*, some of our own.  But anytime the issue comes up, email is the fastest way to possibly work out the problem.

We received a reply to the email that we sent to Wentworth Fri. night and he said that he would check with the mail clerk to see if they could figure out what is happening.  I do remember that at one place when the redirect box on the form was checked and unit chaplain was written in that all the mail was going to the chaplain.  Does anyone remember where that was happening?  Maybe Ch. Cpt. Dickey is getting all his mail.  I will have to remind him to check with the chaplain.

Gran

WENTWORTH update:  He says that he can't sign for insured mail, so a no-go on that idea.  He is going to try tracking it down however he can on base, and he expresses his thanks and appreciation for our help and support.

Gran

Here's a couple larger groups seem to be undersupported....

Also, Heartmindsol's list from 4/1, there are quite a few on there that have no additional support yet and could really use it from the looks of it.

ps.HOLY COW Southwick!!

Shelly

Miguel A Reyes 3/21, 100/15, 8 requests

SSG Michael Klinglesmith 3/13, 23/5, 6 requests

SGT Joshua Randash 3/13, 130/0, 10 requests

LT Hoang Tran 2/21, 69/6, 10 requests

Paul DerMiner 3/2, 190/15, 17 requests

Sue Wilburn 2/13, 220/30, 19 requests

WENTWORTH update -- he just posted today (4/21/08) with a photo!  It's a beautiful, heartfelt post -- he doesn't say specifically, but I hope this means he FINALLY tracked down & they got their boxes -- does anyone know?

--Marilyn

Marilyn,

It sounds as if they have been moved from their FOB to a camp where they cannot get cigarettes and are requesting them.  But it doesn't look as if they have a change of address.

It is a beautiful post and very inspiring to all.

Mimi

I got a snopes.com thing today on a soldier named matt maupin, and how much his family and town are supporting him.  He died and they are having an escort when his body comes home.  http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/prayer/maupin.asp

At one place they wrote that prayers are the best things we can offer our soldiers.  So I had to put my 2 cents in and wrote snopes a comment and said maybe you could encourage people to both pray and WRITE, and I gave them this website and americalsupportsyou.mil.

Maybe if a couple of others could go to snopes and put in their 2 cents about writing, they would add it as a footnote on the arcticle.  <shrug> can't hurt to ask.

Lisa

heartmindsol:

Scott Harrington posted 3-11-08, 100 troops, 9 requests

I'll be sending a package to Scott Harrington on 4-22-08 (Priority Mail).  He did not have much on his request list, so I hope a small FRB will be enough for the time being.