biig wrote:
> jmcquown wrote:
>>
>> -L. wrote:
>>> Gregory Morrow wrote:
>>>> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/31/dining/31care.html
>>>>
>>>> For Soldiers' Appetites, Reinforcements
>>>> By KIM SEVERSON
>>>
>>> <snip>
>>>
>>> **** sending them cookies. Just bring them back home!
>>>
>>> "Personal interest" stories like this make me wanna puke. Let's
>>> hear
>>> the real stories of war - where little kids get shrapnel in the eyes
>>> and grandmas get their legs blown off. War is not about cookies and
>>> emails from soldiers.
>>>
>>> -L.
>>
>> Well sweetie, those soldiers appreciate care packages from home,
>> even if it isn't from their own home. My father is a veteran of
>> WWII, Korea and VietNam and he sure appreciated letters (they didn't
>> have email back then) and cookies and brownies. So don't go
>> shooting off your mouth lightly. Unlike me picking and choosing
>> cookies and snacks for an airplane, people who join the military and
>> get shipped off don't get to choose where they are sent. And every
>> little care package reminds them we care even if we don't approve of
>> the war they are fighting.
>>
>> Jill
> Recently, while cleaning out some stuff from my elderly Mom's house,
> we came across the letters she received from my Dad while he was
> overseas. (I don't know what happened to the letters she sent to him,
> but I'm guessing that when he was shipped home (on the Queen
> Elizabeth)
> he wasn't able to bring them.) Mom gave me permission to read them,
> since I was born while he was over there. In all of the letters, he
> mentioned to keep the letters and packages coming, that they were what
> keeps them going. EVERY letter, some asking for specific things, was
> a request and a thank you. ....Sharon

Sharon,

During the Vietnam years my father decided it would be the coolest thing if
he and mom exchanged taped (as in reel-to-reel) taped letters to each other.
He had a small battery powered reel-to-reel Sony tape recorder and mom and a
big one. They taped letters back and forth. Dad gave me that small
reel-to-reel recorder back in the 1980's. What he didn't realize was there
was still a small 4 inch reel stuck in one of the pockets of the carrying
case. When I queued it up I heard my Dad, who was about 35 at the time,
talking about how Mom should go ahead and by me a proper bed since I'd been
sleeping on a cot since I'd been out of my crib. I was 6 years old, maybe
7, when he recorded this. It was a strange and heartwarming thing to hear
my father's voice talking about her buying me a bed, knowing as I listened
he was away at a war (conflict) no one supported, but what was he worried
about? Mom buying me a proper bed. She got me a canopy bed I also
remember helping her bake peanut butter cookies and oatmeal cookies to ship
to him. Yes, he treasured every package even though they took months to get
there. I gather things are delivered faster these days.

Jill