Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Miami Herald
December 19, 2007 A National Guard unit from Kentucky has charge of picking up the mail, which has risenly dramatically as the holidays get closer.
By Jamie Gumbrecht, McClatchy News Service
CAMP TAJI, Iraq -- It's Christmas time at Camp Taji, and Army Staff Sgt. Jared DeAtley looks traumatized, but not by the war outside the camp or holidays away from home. It's only 9 a.m., and the mail warehouse already has called.
' `Come, get the mail,' '' said DeAtley, who's from Fleming County, Ky., shaking his head.
Those calls have been coming earlier and more emphatically lately. The daily mail pickup by Battery B, 2nd Battalion, 138th Field Artillery, a National Guard unit from Carlisle, Ky., easily fills the bed of a Chevy Silverado, sometimes twice.
With the holidays approaching, the volume of mail headed to service members in Iraq has skyrocketed. In one 24-hour period last week, 788,473 pounds of mail came into Iraq, according to the U.S. military's Postal Operations Division in Kuwait. Compare that with a 24-hour period in July, when soldiers received a mere 294,808 pounds.
For the 2-138, the sheer volume -- Xboxes and iPods from family, treats and cards from well-wishers they've never met -- prompts them to deny adamantly that they need anything. Once, after the unit arrived in August, some soldiers mused that they'd like soft toilet paper and a bag of Werther's Original. They received crates of fluffy rolls and 40 bags of hard caramel candy.
''You have to be careful what you ask for,'' said Capt. Steve Mattingly of Bardstown, Ky.
The mail warehouses at this base 20 miles north of Baghdad are crammed with mail -- 60,952 pounds arrived one day last week -- from all over the world, funneled through Bahrain.
A good portion of that is destined for the 167 soldiers of the 2-138, whose family support group in Kentucky appears to be tireless.
The soldiers hope never to need the quantities of anti-fungal nail cream they've received or the ACE bandages, Band-Aids and bags and bags of lip balm. Mattingly likes to dig for the peppermint kind, the same flavor his 4-year-old daughter likes.
''Sometimes she'll lay one on me, and I can feel it tingle,'' he says. ``I can feel that tingle now.''
Goodies without recipients' names attached land on a free-for-all table or in the hands of Iraqi children. The soldiers covet only a few items: electrical tape, Girl Scout cookies, the rare unmelted Reese's peanut butter cup -- a treat found only in cooler weather.
The soldiers try to write thank-you notes for the cards and cookies. They need only to scratch ''Free Mail'' in the corner for letters to make it to the United States. The tough part will be shipping all the big stuff back when they leave next year.
December 19, 2007 A National Guard unit from Kentucky has charge of picking up the mail, which has risenly dramatically as the holidays get closer.
By Jamie Gumbrecht, McClatchy News Service
CAMP TAJI, Iraq -- It's Christmas time at Camp Taji, and Army Staff Sgt. Jared DeAtley looks traumatized, but not by the war outside the camp or holidays away from home. It's only 9 a.m., and the mail warehouse already has called.
' `Come, get the mail,' '' said DeAtley, who's from Fleming County, Ky., shaking his head.
Those calls have been coming earlier and more emphatically lately. The daily mail pickup by Battery B, 2nd Battalion, 138th Field Artillery, a National Guard unit from Carlisle, Ky., easily fills the bed of a Chevy Silverado, sometimes twice.
With the holidays approaching, the volume of mail headed to service members in Iraq has skyrocketed. In one 24-hour period last week, 788,473 pounds of mail came into Iraq, according to the U.S. military's Postal Operations Division in Kuwait. Compare that with a 24-hour period in July, when soldiers received a mere 294,808 pounds.
For the 2-138, the sheer volume -- Xboxes and iPods from family, treats and cards from well-wishers they've never met -- prompts them to deny adamantly that they need anything. Once, after the unit arrived in August, some soldiers mused that they'd like soft toilet paper and a bag of Werther's Original. They received crates of fluffy rolls and 40 bags of hard caramel candy.
''You have to be careful what you ask for,'' said Capt. Steve Mattingly of Bardstown, Ky.
The mail warehouses at this base 20 miles north of Baghdad are crammed with mail -- 60,952 pounds arrived one day last week -- from all over the world, funneled through Bahrain.
A good portion of that is destined for the 167 soldiers of the 2-138, whose family support group in Kentucky appears to be tireless.
The soldiers hope never to need the quantities of anti-fungal nail cream they've received or the ACE bandages, Band-Aids and bags and bags of lip balm. Mattingly likes to dig for the peppermint kind, the same flavor his 4-year-old daughter likes.
''Sometimes she'll lay one on me, and I can feel it tingle,'' he says. ``I can feel that tingle now.''
Goodies without recipients' names attached land on a free-for-all table or in the hands of Iraqi children. The soldiers covet only a few items: electrical tape, Girl Scout cookies, the rare unmelted Reese's peanut butter cup -- a treat found only in cooler weather.
The soldiers try to write thank-you notes for the cards and cookies. They need only to scratch ''Free Mail'' in the corner for letters to make it to the United States. The tough part will be shipping all the big stuff back when they leave next year.