My dear friend, Haole Wahine from Texas, has a very special friend who lives in Belgium.  Kris sends Haole Wahine emails on notable days such as Veterans Day, each branches birthday, Independence Day, 9/11, etc.  He sent her an email today in honor and thanks of our military as we begin the New Year.  I want to share it with you without comments from me.  Hopefully you won't need any comments to know how I feel after you read it.

Take a minute, literally, to view this video.  It shows the remote and austere conditions of one of the many outposts the 173rd, 2/503 Sky Soldiers are manning in Kunar Province. 

I don't know how I missed the website for the Combined Joint Task Force - 82  Operation Enduring Freedom but my dear friend ConcreteBob educated me today.  I hopped on over there and found this story about some work Destined Company is involved in and wanted to share it with you.  The text of the story follows.  Click on the link for some great photos and informational captions, too!

173rd Airborne Brigade Leadership Meet with Narang District Leaders

Written by CJTF-82 Operations

Thursday, 27 December 2007

New members in the leadership of 2/503rd Brigade Combat Team, 173rd Airborne Brigade recently met with Narang District Leaders in and around the Narang Valley, Konar Province.    The new Destined Company leadership met with the Narang Valley Sub-Governor in an effort to continue the good working relationship between Coalition Forces and Afghan National Security Forces and the people of the Narang Valley.  They discussed future possible Civil Engineering Reconstruction Projects (CERP), the importance of the Afghan National Police and their vital role to the security and stability of their District, and helped the Sub-Governor distribute Humanitarian Aid to some of the people near the District Center.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I am a huge "fan" and supporter of Commanding General David Petraeus.  I've said many times this year that if asked the question "What notable person would you like to meet and why?" it would be General Petraeus because of his grace under pressure, his integrity, his professionalism, his vision, his leadership and his ability to testify before those morons in Congress without cracking so much as a grin when asked such stupid questions and being lectured to by idiots who apparently have no idea about war and certainly have no right to tell the military how to fight one.  A man who was totally disrespected by many of our elected officials during the testimony yet answered each of them with complete respect and dignity.

Anyone who doubts his COIN doctrine and the success it has been in Iraq is either on drugs, in denial or just down right stupid. 

My hat is off to the Sunday Telegraph for their selection and their reasons why.  The article can be found here but you know I'm not going to make you go there to read it.  Without further ado I give you the REAL Person of the Year.

General David Petraeus - Person of the Year

Achieving what many feared impossible: General David Petraeus’s surge has reduced violence in Iraq

General Petraeus: man with a message of hope

The critics said it couldn't be done, but the vision and determination of General David Petraeus have brought greater security and cause for optimism to the people of Iraq. He is The Sunday Telegraph's Person of the Year. For a man whose critics say he is far too fond of the television cameras, General David Petraeus, commander of US forces in Iraq, has been rather out of the limelight this Christmas. The sprightly, media-friendly 55-year-old is not perturbed, however, that his face is no longer number one item on the US networks. As he said last week, where Iraq is concerned, "No news is good news." Today, we put him in the spotlight again by naming Gen Petraeus as The Sunday Telegraph's Person of the Year, a new annual accolade to recognise outstanding individual achievement. He has been the man behind the US troop surge over the past 10 months, the last-ditch effort to end Iraq's escalating civil war by putting an extra 28,000 American troops on the ground. So far, it has achieved what many feared was impossible. Sectarian killings are down. Al-Qaeda is on the run. And the two million Iraqis who fled the country are slowly returning. Progress in Iraq is relative - 538 civilians died last month. But compared with the 3,000 peak of December last year, it offers at least a glimmer of hope. Nonetheless, why should we choose to nominate Petraeus. There has, after all, been no shortage of other candidates this year. President Nicolas Sarkozy has impressed many with his determination to reform France, while George Osborne reinvigorated politics in this country by daring to put tax cuts back on the agenda - though both men still have much to prove. There are plenty of brave figures thrust into the limelight who handled themselves with dignity, such as Gillian Gibbons, the teacher jailed in Sudan; the Glasgow airport luggage-handler John Smeaton; and Kate and Gerry McCann. Sporting stars such as Paula Radcliffe and Lewis Hamilton have inspired millions of fans. There has also been great British military leadership and bravery on display this year, not least in Helmand, where British troops are now fighting a Taliban foe as fierce as anything their American counterparts encountered in Baghdad or Fallujah. But the reason for picking Petraeus is simple. Iraq, whatever the current crises in Afghanistan and Pakistan, remains the West's biggest foreign policy challenge of this decade, and if he can halt its slide into all-out anarchy, Gen Petraeus may save more than Iraqi lives. A failed Iraq would not just be a second Vietnam, nor would it just be America's problem. It would be a symbolic victory for al-Qaeda, a safe haven for jihadists to plot future September 11s and July 7s, and a battleground for a Shia-Sunni struggle that could draw in the entire Middle East. Our future peace and prosperity depend, in part, on fixing this mess. And, a year ago, few had much hope. To appreciate the scale of the task Gen Petraeus took on, it is necessary to go back to February 22, 2006. Or, as Iraqis now refer to it, their own September 11. That was when Sunni-led terrorists from al-Qaeda blew up the Shia shrine in the city of Samarra, an act of provocation that finally achieved their goal of igniting sectarian civil war. A year on, an estimated 34,000 people had been killed on either side - some of them members of the warring Sunni and Shia militias, but most innocents tortured and killed at random. US casualties continued to rise, too, but increasingly American troops became the bystanders in a religious conflict that many believed they could no longer tame. Except, that is, for Gen Petraeus. Despite his well-documented obsession with fitness - he starts his 18-hour days with a five-mile run - he is the opposite of the brawn-over-brain image that has dogged the US military mission in Iraq. Top of the class of 1974 at West Point Military Academy and the holder of a PhD in international relations, he is the co author of the US military's manual on counter-insurgency, a "warrior monk" for whom the messy intrigues of asymmetric warfare hold more interest than the straightforward challenges of 2003's invasion. Simply being the best and brightest soldier of his generation, however, would not be enough for Iraq in 2007, where a major part of the "surge" involves reconciling Iraq's warring political tribes. When the White House called, confirming him for the job, President Bush was looking not just for an outstanding leader but also a diplomat, a politician and a negotiator. It seems he got them all. "Petraeus has a rare combination of great geopolitical skills as well as tactical and military ones," says retired General Jack Keane, a fellow architect of the surge strategy. "He is good at working with ambassadors, with the Iraqi government, and he also knows how to cope with uncertainty and failure, which is what you get in an environment like Iraq." Lest Gen Keane seem a little biased, it should be pointed out that British commanders hold Gen Petraeus in similarly high regard. Several Northern Ireland veterans who worked with him in Baghdad this year came away with the opinion that it is now America, not Britain, that is the world leader in counter-insurgency. As Petraeus toured some of Baghdad's abandoned, bullet-scarred Sunni neighbourhoods last February, his own comrades were not the only ones predicting he might fail spectacularly. Among the US public, the clamour grew for the troops to be brought home altogether, and Iraq to be declared a lost cause unworthy of further American sacrifice. The surge's "boots on the ground" strategy would simply force the militias into temporary hiding, critics said, wasting thousands more Americans lives in the process. The strategy's chances of success were commonly put at only one in three - and those were the odds quoted by its supporters. Indeed, when The Sunday Telegraph visited Baghdad in the spring, US troops were candid about their expectations. "Sure, the bad guys will go into hiding," said one commander in Jamia, an al-Qaeda-infested neighbourhood with 30 murders a month. "All we can hope is that things will have improved by the time they come back, so they're no longer welcome." Nine months on, things do seem to have improved, thanks largely to Petraeus's extraordinary coup of turning Sunni insurgents against their extremist allies in al-Qaeda. With the chief accelerant in the civil war gone, Shia militias such as the Mehdi Army have also been deprived of their main raison d'être, and with extra US troops on the streets, Iraqis who had previously felt vulnerable to the gunmen now feel safe enough to return home. Things are far from perfect but, after four years in which events did nothing but get worse, the sight of a souk re-opening, or a Shia family being welcomed back home by their Sunni neighbours, has remarkable morale-boosting power. Where once Iraqis saw the glass as virtually empty, now they can see a day when it might at least be half full. True, post-Saddam Iraq has had a habit of confounding even the most cautious of optimists. Iraq's Shia-dominated government is not alone in worrying that the most controversial of Gen Petraeus's policies - the co-opting of former Sunni insurgents into "concerned local citizens" schemes to fend off Shia militias - may create new, better-organised forces for a renewed civil war once the US finally departs. Many coalition officials fear such a scenario. Were it to occur, it would confirm the charges of Petraeus's critics that at best he has secured only a hiatus in the collapse of Iraq. Ultimately, that may prove to be the case. But it should not overshadow his achievement this year: he has given another last chance to a country that had long since ceased to expect one. And for that, Gen Petraeus is Person of the Year.

I have received many unexpected gifts as a result of supporting our deployed military personnel.  Some of the most special gifts are “meeting” the families of those who are far away from home and in harms way.  A few weeks ago I received correspondence from SPC Eckrode’s father.  Since then he, Frank, Sr. and I, have chatted back and forth.  He has been kind enough to tell me about his son.  With his father’s permission I want to share a little about SPC Eckrode with all of you.

 

SPC Eckrode grew up an Army brat and comes from a long line of military family.  His father is a retired CWO3 and his mother served in the Army.  His paternal grandparents are retired (grandfather) Navy and former (grandmother) Navy.  His maternal grandfather is former Army.  The list goes on and on with respect to Aunts, Uncles, etc who have served in the Army, Marines, Navy and Air Force.  SPC Eckrode moved to no less than six military bases with his family while his father served his career in the Army.  When his father retired the family settled in to their 1885 family homestead in Oregon.  SPC Eckrode attended and graduated as the fourth generation from Yamhill Carlton Union High School.  While a senior in high school he, just as is father had done, joined the Army on the delayed enlistment program.

 

I’ll let his father tell you a little about SPC Eckrode now…”Why did he go in?  He always talked about it from the time he could speak and when stationed at Ft Lewis was mesmerized by the Rangers and Airborne Soldiers there and said he was going to do one of those.  I thought it was just a little kid talking until almost 12 years later when he did just that.  He scored one of the highest scores in Oregon's history on his ASVAB (the Army entrance test) but still choose to go Infantry and airborne.  As a retired officer I had the great pleasure of swearing him in on both his delayed entry and his active duty.”

After SPC Eckrode graduated from Airborne school he was assigned to Battle Co, 2/503 Airborne Infantry, 173rd Airborne Brigade based in Vicenza Italy.  They were deployed to Kunar Province, Afghanistan in late May 2007 for 15 months.

In high school SPC Eckrode exhibited a small interest in wrestling.  However, his main interests were in computer programming, computer networking, and gaming.  According to his father “before he left [for the Army] in Aug of 05 he would go to what they call LAN parties, where everyone's computers were linked together and fight on line battles and games over the internet teamed up with his buddies, early training I guess.”  His father goes on to describe SPC Eckrode as follows.  “He is a quite the character, and his sense of humor will leave you in hysterics, and I love his dry humor.”  And then he comments “I hope this experience hasn't dampened that.”

On 26 October 2007 SPC Eckrode was wounded when the Taliban attacked his firebase.  He was shot four times and was medivaced out for treatment of his wounds.  SPC Eckrode apparently gave the medics and personnel at the field hospital quite a bit of flak about wanting to get back to his men ASAP.  Within a couple of weeks he was back with his platoon.

There are many details about the events of 26 October 2007 that will go unsaid here at this time.  On that day two of the Soldiers of Battle Company gave their all for this nation, SGT Joshua Brennan and SPC Hugh Mendoza.  May they rest in peace and may their families know that our thoughts, prayers and heartfelt condolences are with them always.  SPC Eckrode and all the other men of his platoon fought bravely and valiantly that day.  In time I am sure the details will be made public.

 

As a result of the actions that SPC Eckrode took on 26 October 2007 he has been nominated for a Bronze Star with V device.  When corresponding with his father about the medal SPC Eckrode wrote, “i guess i didnt think i did much but everyone else disagrees.”  His father reminded him, “I told you when you left, no medals didn't I”  SPC Eckrode replied, “yeh i know, shit happens.”

 

On that same day that he was corresponding with his family via instant messenger SPC Eckrode wrote, “ive been thinking about re-enlisting lately.  yeh just thinking though.  its hard to explain.  i live in a shithole, carry too much weight and the walks suck, but when i do my actual job i enjoy what i do.”  His father replied to him, among other things, “not hard to explain unless it is a civilian you are talking to.”

I don’t know about the rest of you but in my book SPC Eckrode, Jr. is one of our many national treasures.  He and the Soldiers of Battle Company along with those of HHC, Able, Chosen, Destine and Fusion Companies are enduring more in Operation Enduring Freedom than I think many want to believe or choose to believe.  I couldn’t mean it more when I say that all of our deployed personnel DESERVE our support.  But I also can’t mean it more when I say that these Soldiers are in HELL and, in my opinion, deserve our support more than most at this time.  Kunar Province, Afghanistan has been declared the most dangerous place on earth.  Since arriving in Afghanistan in May the Brigade has suffered 28 casualties.  Twenty eight of our bravest men have given their lives fighting the Taliban.  One in four has sustained wounds.  Well over 500 fire fights have taken place – often two to three in one day.  What an honor and privilege it is to get to “know” men like SPC Frank Eckrode, Jr.  What a privilege it is to live in a nation that has men like him who selflessly make the choice to defend this nation and our freedoms.  What a blessing it is to have families such as SPC Eckrode’s and all the other families who are back home waiting for their loved ones to return. 

 

Just like SPC Eckrode’s family I, too, pray that his deployment to Afghanistan will not take away that carefree spirit he has.  I hope his laughter and sense of humor remain intact.  Most of all I hope that he and all those serving with him know how PROUD we are of them and how many of us feel there is no way we can ever appropriately thank them for their service to this nation.

 

If any other families of Sky Soldiers read this post I welcome the opportunity to get to “know” your Soldier and to share their story with others.

 

Be safe.  We love and support you all.

 

I mentioned when I first started this blog that I'd never really wanted one.  I figured I'd end up saying way too many things to offend people and what good would come of that?  I fully believe in the First Amendment right of Freedom of Speech.  But I also believe that way too many people can't seem to understand that along with freedom comes the duty not to abuse it.  Well...I gotta get something off of my chest and whether it offends anyone matters not to me because I am VERY offended.

I used to be a fan of Billy Joel's music.  I've bought his albums (yes albums) and CDs.  I've attended his concerts which I thought were great.  Now I regret that one penny of my money or one moment of my time was spent on him.  Why? one might ask.  Because of his most recent song.  He wrote it but chose someone else to record it.  Let me share the lyrics with you from http://www.metrolyrics.com.  My comments in bold blue.

It's evening in the desert
I'm tired and I'm cold
But I am just a soldier JUST a Soldier?  JUST???  Any ONE of our Soldiers is more of an American than you.  JUST a SOLDIER?  You gotta be kidding me!!!
I do what I am told 

We came with the crusaders  You're kidding me, right?
To save the holy land  Whose holy land?
It's Christmas in Fallujah
And no one gives a damn  OH Mr. Joel - you are SADLY mistaken if you believe this line.  Seems to me from this "song" that YOU don't give a damn about our deployed military personnel OR their families.  Sadly there seem to be way too many "celebrities" who are a member of that club.

And I just got your letter
And this is what I read you said
I'm fading from your memory
So I'm just as good as dead  WOW!  Another stanza of great support!!!!

We are the armies of the empire  Huh?
We are the legionnaires of Rome  Guess you had to rhyme and your brain and vocabulary aren't too deep.

It's Christmas in Fallujah
And we ain't never coming home  More great encouragement and support.  What an American you are!
We came to bring these people freedom And our brave Warriors have - because it's what they do - protect and provide freedom.  Even for you Mr. Joel.
We came to fight the infidel  Thank God they did so we won't have to on our soil.
There is no justice in the desert  Says who Mr. Joel?  Says who?
Because there is no God in hell  Oh but there IS a good and loving God all around us.  Do you believe in God Mr. Joel?

They say Osama's in the mountains
Deep in a cave near Pakistan  And we have brave Warriors in Afghanistan fighting against him Mr. Joel.  Did you know that?  Do you know they are in HELL protecting us from the Taliban?
But there's a sea of blood in Baghdad Uh, read the news lately Mr. Joel????
A sea of oil in the sand  Here we go again.  Missing the point!!!  But, it does rhyme, now doesn't it?
Between the Tigris and Euphrates
Another day comes to an end
It's Christmas in Fallujah
Piece on Earth goodwill to men

It's Christmas in Fallujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah
It's Christmas in Fallujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah
It's Christmas in Fallujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah
It's Christmas in Fallujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah

Marry Christmas from Fallujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah
Marry Christmas from Fallujah
Hallelujah, hallelujah [5x]

Now there is a video of this song.  I'm not at all interested in posting a link here.  Find it yourself if you really want to watch it.  In the video there are people in military uniforms providing background Hooahs.  I'd love to know if these are REAL military personnel.  Very interested.

Mr. Joel was interviewed by Rolling Stone about the song.  You can find the interview here.  In the interview he says he's been getting mail from "over there."  He goes on to say that - I just gotta quote him here - "It was a couple of letters. There seemed to be a similar theme running through the letters, which was a sense of alienation from the home front. I think that a lot of people are starting to feel like they're forgotten."  Work with me here.  A COUPLE of letters.  A sense of alienation from the home front?  Must be talking about the likes of Pelosi and Murtha, Code Pink, etal.  Forgotten?  You want to talk with some Soldiers who feel as though they have been forgotten?  Let me give you the address to the 173rd, 2/503 and the other Battalions in their Brigade in Afghanistan.  NOT!  I wouldn't give you the address of ANY Soldier, Marine, Sailor or Airman I know of and support.  And to go back to your comment about the couple of letters from Iraq - obviously you aren't getting letters and emails from the same deployed personnel as my friends and I are.  Sheesh!  What cha gonna do with the money from the song Mr. Joel???  While I hope it doesn't sell well at all are you going to donate ALL of the procedes to your "forgotten" buddies? 

A couple of questions later in the interview he answers a question with, "I think it's a song about a soldier, about a marine. People can take it anyway they want. I don't get up on a soapbox and do political messages."  OK, if I wasn't so ticked off right now I'd be laughing.  He doesn't get up on a soapbox and do political messages?  Huh? 

I've corresponded with more than a "couple" of deployed military personnel in Iraq about this song and they are MORE than offended by the lyrics.  Many are more than outraged.  Gotta love America.  Gotta love those who choose to abuse Freedom of Speech.  What a sad, sad state our nation is in.

I received the following email and wanted to share it with you so that you could stop at 10:00 Eastern Time tomorrow and remember the men of Battle Company as well as those from the other Companies in the Battlation who have given their lives in defense of this great nation.  May they rest in peace and may their families and fellow Soldiers left behind know how much they are in our thoughts and prayers.

 

Merry Christmas to all-

I am writing to you to wish you and your loved ones a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.    The men of Battle Company and I want to ensure that you know you are all deep in our thoughts and prayers as the whole Battle Hard family celebrates their holiday season apart from those they love.  

 
As members of the family I wanted to include you in our best wishes, and ensure that you know and understand that we celebrate this season with you. 

Despite our losses this year we will honor those who have given their all with a small show of appreciation.   Tomorrow night at 1500 Zulu the men of Battle Company will shoot one illumination round for each of our fallen brothers.    Each of the rounds will be fired by one of the soldier's brothers in order, and lying over the spot in which they made their final sacrifice.    I will include pictures of the occasion tomorrow night on a follow up email, but wanted each of you to know that at 1500Zulu (1000 AM EST) if you look up into the sky-- know that your Battle Hard Family is there with you.   

Please don't take this in the wrong way, but as a gesture of appreciation and a way for the Battle soldiers spread across the valley and the world to unite and pay tribute to their fallen brothers.    I ask that at 1500 Zulu you join in with us and look out your window and up into the sky and know that we celebrate this Christmas as a family.

Merry Christmas to all, and Happy Holidays.

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Sorry to be a couple of days late posting this but...it's is THAT time of year.  I want to send very special Christmas Greetings to the Sky Soldiers and their families.  You will be in my thoughts and prayers more than usual during the holiday season.

On 12/21/07 I met with Corinthian from the AT&T Pioneers club of Memphis/Western Tennessee.  Corinthian is a wonderful young American.  He has worked tirelessly to secure thermal underwear for the Sky Soldiers since the first day he and I talked.  Well...he and his Pioneers really came through.  I picked up 154 pairs - yes PAIRS - of dark colored thermal underwear.

Corinthian gets the award for most helpful donor EVER!  Not only had he driven all over West Tennessee to pick up the items and purchase them with funds donated BUT he had them packed for shipping and labeled with the exact number of pairs, colors and sizes.   Because HE took the time to do that he saved me hours of work and I'll always be grateful to him for going the extra mile.  Thank you Corinthian.  And a big THANKS to the AT&T Pioneers for their donations.  Below is a photo showing the thermal underwear as well as 60 more boxes (5 cases) of lasagna noodles.

 

Additionally Corinthian gave me a huge box of Christmas cards to send to the Sky Soldiers.  The Children of Lewisburg Elementary School sent at least 500 cards.  Below is a photo of just a few of them.

And the children of Wells Station Elementary also made cards to send.  They even "personalized" many of the cards with 173rd, 2/503 on them.

A HUGE thanks to Corinthian, the AT&T Pioneers and to the children, faculty and staff of Lewisburg and Wells Station Elementary schools.  All of the items you donated are on the way to Afghanistan.

I have received correspondence from men at one of the Firebases.  The note card was dated November 1, 2007 and arrived this week.  They are asking for LOTS more hand warmers.  Please email me at tankerbabelc@gmail.com if you are interested in helping to provide them with hand warmers.

I've been working on a very special post the past two weeks.  I had intended to have it up by now but...time has not been good to me.  So...check back in a day or two.

Merry Christmas to all!  Wishing you a safe, peaceful and joyous holiday with your family and friends.  Don't forget to keep the Sky Soldiers and their families in your thoughts and prayers.  Special prayers for the families of those whose loved ones will not celebrate another Christmas with them.  Their sacrifice will never be forgotten in this house.

WOW!  Another great week thanks to so many of you.  Here's a run down:

Bob from Arizona and the "Phins to the West" group donated 288 balaclavas.  They were actually sent last week. 

Brownie Troop 135 from Barlett, TN made cards and donated socks for the Sky Soldiers

Mamie from Louisianna sent 800 sticks of moisturizing lip balm.

Kathryn and her church group from Arlington, TN donated over 100 Christmas cards with wonderful notes as well as LOTS of socks and hand warmers.

Frank and Nancy donated HUGE amounts of the large size spices as well as lasagna noodles.

Josh at Schnucks grocery store made me a deal I couldn't refuse on lasagna noodles (requested by the Company that provides all of the meals for the Battalion).  40 boxes of lasagna noodles shipped this week.  30 boxes were shipped last week.

SK sent a break maker (also requested by the cooks - see email below)

Anonymous provided a huge quantity of spices and 4 kitchen knives (see email below)

Anonymous sent 9 pair of thermal underwear.  THANKS A MILLION - we REALLY need more of these!

My local Starbucks held a "Caffeine for Christmas" drive specifically for the 173rd, 2/503.  One of my friends from the local recruiting station stopped by to thank the employees and patrons for their support.  Dana, the store manager is a HUGE supporter of our troops.  In a little over an hour we collected 60 bags of coffee from patrons as well as from donations by the employees themselves.  Photos below.  You cannot really tell but Dana had purchased Cammo Santa hats for the staff to wear that day.

Some friend of mine at Delta Air Lines baked cookies.  We shipped about 20 dozen of them.  Yummy!

Delta Air Lines in Atlanta, New Orleans and Little Rock sent more cards.  Bob S was in charge of the drive in Atlanta.  That station also received cards from Georgia Tech in Atlanta.  AND....Bob's daughter Gwen collected cards from her classmates at Cordova High School.  In all we shipped well over 1,000 Christmas cards to the Battalion due to the efforts of these groups.  One of the employees in Atlanta made the cutest "donation box" for employees to put their cards in.

And last, but certainly not least, Kyle and her amazing volunteers at Keystone Soldiers (www.keystonesoldiers.com) shipped 350 of (what Kyle said) are the thickest, warmest, softest fleece blankets.  They also shipped cases of baby/body wipes and cases of canned foods (soups and stews, etc.).  To read more about what Kyle and her volunteers did yesterday click here.  They are just amazing and such an inspiration to me.

I know some of you have taken the time to click on the link to Kyle's website and make a donation to help with shipping costs.  There is no way we can thank you enough.  Kyle and her organization have shipped well over TWO TONS of necessary items to the Sky Soldiers.  The shipping costs are astronomical.  If you haven't made a donation yet please do so now.  EVERY dollar helps and matters.  Please don't feel as if you have to make a substantial donation but if you can EVERY penny will be spent on the Soldiers.  Kyle's organization is ALL volunteer - NO SALARIES to anyone -not even to Kyle.

Items we continue to need:

• Thermal underwear - tops and bottoms.  Mostly size medium but some large and extra large.  Must be black, dark grey or green.
• Winter wool hiking socks - dark colors
• Hand warmers
• Construction tools - battery operated drills, etc.  Also hand tools such as saws.  Nails and screws.  These are needed to assist in building and improving their "living" quarters.  Please remember that the Soldiers who are living at the Firebases are living in non-heated mud huts.  Winter has arrived.  It is COLD and snowy up in the Hindu Kush Mountains.

Newly requested items:

• Apple Cider drink mix
• Protein bars and non perishable snacks (nuts, goldfish, packaged cookies, etc.) for the Soldiers at the Firebases who are eating MREs.
• Spices for the cooks.  We've heard that they are in the process of setting up field kitches at most, if not all, of the Firebases in order to provide one hot meal a day.
• Break makers - if you have one that you got for a gift and never used or have used only a time or two please consider donating it.  The Soldier who is in charge of all cooks says that the "bread" they receive is frozen.  By the time they thaw it out and cook it it crumbles to the touch.  Fresh bread seems to be a simple pleasure these men would love to have.
• Lasagna noodles.  We think we have shipped enough for them to provide one lasagna meal.  Let's see if we can't make that two or three.  The Army provides all of the other ingredients for lasagna but not the noodles.  I'm guessing they provide spaghetti noodles or macaroni.
• Chef's knives.
• Ethnic spices such as Goya, asian, etc.

So as you prepare for the holidays, spending it with your families in your warm and comfy homes, around a table ladened with the traditional foods that you and your family enjoy year after year PLEASE consider making a donation towards providing a few "comforts of home" to these Soldiers.  Sure the Army provides them with food and MREs but it gets OLD.  Imagine eating the same thing day after day, week after week for FIFTEEN months in the COLD (or heat of the Summer) in a place recently named the "Most Dangerous Place on Earth."  As I've said before and will continue to say - together we CAN do this.

I cannot begin to thank all of you who have provided support and continue to do so.  Your hearts are amazing.  For those of you who haven't made a donation yet please do so today.  Either contact me at tankerbabelc@gmail.com,  Kyle at www.keystonesoldiers.com or Bob at concrete.bob@verizon.net.

Merry Christmas!  Happy Hanukkah!  Happy Holidays!

And finally here is the email I mentioned above:

We really appreciate your support as well as your offer to assist the
Soldiers of my platoon. Thank you for reaching out to us.

You are correct, my platoon consists of the cooks that feed the
Battalion. You are also correct, the food becomes very repetitious for
the Soldiers. While the Army provides superb food, compared to when I
first entered the Army in '92, it gets old quick.

Alot of requests that have come in from the Soldiers that we can't get
or provide, are a lot of ethnic spices. Some of the requests are Goya,
Curry, asian spices, amongst other flavors. They have also asked for
any assortment of knives as the ones that the Army provides are not of
great quality.

One thing we have not been able to make for our Soldiers due to the
unavailability of the item is Lasagna. If we could please get a big
shipment of Lasagna noodles. We have all the other ingredients to make
this product.

The above list is what most of my Soldiers have requested. This will
allow my cooks to better feed the BN. Whatever spices you can get your
hands on will be appreciated.

SFC XXXXX

A dear friend of mine sent me the photos shown below.  Before I get to the photos I'd just like to say that this friend, who INSISTS on staying "below the radar", has donated more and worked so tirelessly for securing donations for the Sky Soldiers that I couldn't begin to thank her enough.  She knows who she is and she knows how much I appreciate her.  I just wanted you all to know about her.

Now to the photos....these photos were taken outside the home of the parents of one of the Sky Soldiers.  I LOVE these photos and EVERYTHING in them.  While we know that the Soldiers rarely have access to the internet I'm hoping he and his buddies will see these.  Of course his parents probably already sent him copies.  OK, OK - the truth - I wanted all of the rest of you to see them.

I LOVE the banner.  You betch we support your son and his fellow Soldiers. 

OK, so one of the photos may have a tiny little "hint" as to who this is.

MERRY CHRISTMAS to the ARMY STRONG Soldiers of 173rd, 2/503 and their families.