Letter to Afghanistan

I'm spoiled and selfish. I sleep in a warm bed every night. I can eat whenever I'm hungry and a lot of times when I'm not. I have plenty of clothes and shoes and coats to wear. I have creams, lotions, powders and gels for everything: rough hands, cuts and bruises, limp hair, squeaky shoes, tarnished silver jewelry, dry contact lenses, and chapped lips. I can buy or rent any CDs and DVDs I want and write on all the paper I want with as many pens as I want. I have little travel sizes of toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, lotion, hair spray, and even baby powder so I can travel with my favorite brands. And I don't share any of these.

Until now.

Last night I went on the web in search of a soldier or other military person I could write to and maybe send some goodies to. I ended up on AnySoldier.com and spent two or three hours poring over the site, finding out what to do, how to do it, and who to write to. That's when it got interesting.

On the site, you can choose any branch of the military to support. I chose the Air Force. So on AnyAirman.com I read letter after letter after letter from AF men and women on active duty in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. They described their circumstances -- what kinds of buildings they're in, what "amenities" (refrigerator, microwave, etc.) they have (or don't), what their units are, how many males and females there are there, etc. -- and what they'd like to request from people who want to support them. I figured there would be lots of requests for cookies.

Wrong!

The list of things we take for granted that they don't have is nearly infinite. Here are some they listed: healthy individually packaged snacks (they already have junk food but want to be healthier), individual Crystal Light powders to put in their water bottles, travel-sizes of anything for when they're out in the field for days, magazines, small-size snacks of all kinds to stick in their pockets for the field, gum, phone cards to supplement their two 15-minute calls/week they're allowed, calendars to hang in their rooms, ankle socks (which the laundry seems to keep losing), antibacterial wipes, tampons, brand name anythings as a luxury vs. the generics they get, coffee, beef jerky, candles for birthday celebrations, mini-flashlights, deodorant, small travel reading lights, batteries, Q-tips, nail files, DVDs of TV series, blank CDs and DVDs, earbud earphones, hair ties and barrettes, stationery and notecards, and, most of all, LETTERS! Some said that some of their fellow soldiers, airmen, sailors and Marines get no mail at all and reinforced that any letters from anyone who cares enough to send them to active-duty military folks they didn't know were received like an event and shared with everyone.

How could I not respond? Those are hardly extravagances. I could probably fill up a whole Priority Mail Large Flat-Rate Box and send it for $12 just from scouring my own closets and drawers. And it would all be new!

So I'm going to do it!

I've already gotten my first airman's name and APO address, and I've written him a letter and said I'll be sending him a box for him and whoever else he wants to share it with in a couple of days. I'll send two boxes. They say to not mix food and non-foods in the same box because the food picks up the odors of the non-foods. "My" particular airman is in Afghanistan. Once I get the drill down pat, I'll go back and get another person to communicate with and send goodies to. Who knew that goodies wold be the basics of our lives that we take for granted?

Want to join me in this endeavor? Go to AnySoldier.com or any of several similar sites you can find through Google, Yahoo! or Ask.com and browse around. I'll bet you get hooked like I did.