If you already have a box and don’t know where to send it, I can highly recommend that you give it or mail it today to the Christ Lutheran Church at 25816 Tournament Road , Valencia, California 91355. I mention that zip code because I am rarely these days within driving distance of this address. But it is easy for me to send my own favorite gifts – magazines usually bought at Borders or Barnes and Noble bookstores about military history – via any post office where I am to this terrific Valencia Church.
For years, Christ Lutheran Church lay worker Karroll Blackson has created a safe haven for packages sent from all over America to soldiers all over the world. She recommends that a supportive letter be attached – preferably one that is left out with the display of the gifts for all the soldiers to see. Through the years Karrroll has gotten it right, and everyone in Valencia supports her to do her connections to our soldiers professionally and humanly.
Moreover, Karroll has a tendency to write a letter herself to a soldier when a donation is sent to her without a message. But think of it! Would you really feel good about receiving an anonymous gift at your door without any kind of accompanying message? Wouldn’t you feel ten times better if you received a gift that was at least accompanied by a friendly message?
Meanwhile, let me list some recent dynamics here that relate to our soldiers this season.
Ask Congressman McKeon to send soldiers more money.
I am always surprised whenever I talk with a soldier back from Iraq or Afghanistan how little pocket money they are given from our government. One would think that if they are doing such an important job, that they would not just be paid just like workers but at least like professionals. Surely they need to be empowered with enough money to help offset the homelessness and stress they have too largely experienced when they return to America.
Our women soldiers in Iraq need more specific support.
I put this thought near the top of my list only because it has been so neglected in all of the writings about Iraq, while so many tens of thousands of American woman have been courageously fighting there over the years.
It is a puzzlement that that the military says it wants to create gender egalitarianism, and yet only by treating its women soldiers like men. If the best kind of soldier is one that is closest to being a man, why not just have men over there?
Our women overseas have done extremely well, considering they are being supplied as if they were men. In reality, our fighting women in the large part want to be soldiers, but they don’t want to be turned into men, any more than our male soldiers would want to be turned into women. This holiday period is a good time to think about all this, and to send our brave woman the kind of womanly scents and lotions that bring out the best in them no matter where they are. Surely if we can at least start to return again to Edenic teachings that men and women are simply different, we would not today be sending women war veterans out into the homelessness that the Congressional Research Service has declared as four times the rate of homeless male war veterans.
Send our troops the gift of a gourmet flourish.
C rations are notorious for never having a flourish in them, but are the bare-bones tax-paid food that soldiers and prisoners share. While some of the most popular gifts to soldiers overseas are packages of beef jerky, I would make sure that the jerky you send has some kind of flourish – even if it’s simply Teriyaki-flavored . Remember that a gift with a little flourish is like creating a clubhouse atmosphere for a hard-taxed gamer.
Send our soldiers socks.
In America it may seem like an indulgence to change your socks three times a day. In the desert, it is simply something to look forward to.
Send them hand warmers.
Because Iraq and Afghanistan are so hot in the day, everyone including quartermasters forget how cold it is during night patrols. Hand warmers can easily be found in a store like Wal-Mart if you ask for them at customer service.
Also send them footballs.
Because I like to eat home-cooked meals and to listen to the gossip at VFW posts – such as the excellent ones in Canyon Country at Sierra Highway and Baker Canyon Road – I need to pass on this story about footballs in Iraq even if it may have been heightened by the effects of a little too much beer. But it seems that when we send footballs to Afghanistan, we usually get back an American war veteran who has been severely injured in a football game. Invariably, it seems this injured player is some kind of father or mother who has an urgent family situation at home, but who is now on his or her third combat tour. Then, this soldier usually winds up coming home. So you see, football among our soldiers seems to work well, especially in places like the Afghanistan combat turf.
Meanwhile, now that our soldiers are concentrating on fighting in Afghanistan, perhaps we can better appreciate what kind of a world Afghanistan is if we consider the following description of the Soviet experience of this nation from the Wikipedia Encyclopedia:
“Between December 25, 1979 and February 15, 1989, a total of 620,000 soldiers served with the forces in Afghanistan (though there were only 80,000-104,000 serving at one time)
“The total irrecoverable personnel losses of the Soviet Armed Forces, frontier, and internal security troops came to 14,453. Soviet Army formations, units, and HQ elements lost 13,833, KGB sub-units lost 572, MVD formations lost 28, and other ministries and departments lost 20 men. During this period 417 servicemen were missing in action or taken prisoner; 119 of these were later freed, of whom 97 returned to the USSR and 22 went to other countries.
“There were 469,685 sick and wounded, of whom 53,753 or 11.44 percent, were wounded, injured, or sustained concussion and 415,932 (88.56 percent) fell sick. A high proportion of casualties were those who fell ill. This was because of local climatic and sanitary conditions, which were such that acute infections spread rapidly among the troops. There were 115,308 cases of infectious hepatitis, 31,080 of typhoid fever, and 140,665 of other diseases. Of the 11,654 who were discharged from the army after being wounded, maimed, or contracting serious diseases, 92 percent, or 10,751 men, were left disabled…”
To a clear degree, the al Qaeda won some real advantages by shifting its war against America primarily from Iraq to Afghanistan. There are not the exposed surfaces in Afghanistan like in Iraq that accommodate Western-style military surges. In comparison to flat Iraq, hilly and hurly-burly Afghanistan is built more like a Halloween Freak Mansion. It has even gone down in history as the only place Alexander the Great invaded that he could never control.
So surely supporting American soldiers in this mountainous hodgepodge of pocket resistance is even more crucial then when most of our military theater was in wide-open Iraq.
A couple of years ago, I interviewed a rather recently discharged American Marine who had fought for years in both Iraq and Afghanistan, just for the purpose of trying to find out what it is that our overseas soldiers want from the rest of us . Anthony Duke is now a very popular teacher at the California Military Institute in Perris in Riverside County, one of only two military magnet public secondary schools in California. Here is what he says of support from the rest of us:
“Letters are so, so important to our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. They will want to write back, so you will make that easier by including writing material in your packages — paper and pens. Underwear and plain pea-green and tan socks for camouflage uniforms are always needed. Think of powdered Gator Ade. Think of un-refrigerated black and red roe sold on store shelves as a condiment. Think of canned salmon, canned crab, canned shrimp. Then if you know of how to get Skin So Soft — an Avon product Send as much as you can. It seems to be the only thing that repels insects of that region. But whatever you send, be sure to add your own thoughts in your own letters about why it is this important for you to support us in such a way.”
Chris Sharp- Commentary
Chris Sharp is an Educator and a prize-winning professional writer. His commentaries represent his own opinions and not necessarily the views of any organization he may be affiliated with or those of the West Ranch Beacon.