Chris' Deployment Journal

MANY thanks to everyone who sent us all those great packages during the last year! You have made a huge difference in our morale, often providing food for us, both for lunches here and snacks out in sector, that without would leave us choking down many a 'Meal Ready to Eat' (and that's not good).

But, all good things must come to an end. Please do not send any more packages (or mail even), as my old address will soon be the mailing address for a bunch of dudes from the 101st Air Assault Division. (And they can have it!)

Currently we are very well stocked on tuna, Pop Tarts, nuts, dried fruit, cookies, etc. and certainly have enough to last us through these last few WEEKS. (Did you notice the word 'WEEKS' there? We can now count down the WEEKS, not the months, the WEEKS that we have left here!)

And man, we are LOADED on stuffed animals right now. We have about seven big boxes of 'lahaba' to give out (thanks to recent packages from Dad, The Goddard House, mom, my sister Kari, Jonathan Smith, Zach Klotovich, etc.) plus huge bags of candy. We sort of got back-logged because we haven't run many day patrols lately and the few we did I often had other duties during. And of course it's a little tough to hand out toys to kids at midnight and 5:00 AM, especially when there's a curfew here.

Don't fret though as soon we'll be upping our 'op tempo' (operating tempo) in anticipation of the elections. I will be out in sector plenty and will be sure to give out as many toys to as many girls as I can and will post what photos I can of the kids here on the blog. So stay tuned true believers!