The Strength Behind The Strong

After we profiled Operation Helmetliner in February (“Enlisting All Knitters: Help keep a soldier warm in Afghanistan”), many of our readers stepped up to help. Last week, Citizen S.A.M. — which runs Operation Helmetliner — announced that it is ending its program. Why? The U.S. military is now issuing its own helmet liners.

The Citizen S.A.M. newsletter explains:

As we gear up for Operation Santa, we say goodbye to a wonderful program, Operation Helmetliner. …

[The military] will no longer be allowed to accept the liners you have so lovingly made. 

If anyone has any completed liners ready to send to us, please do so quickly. [Citizen S.A.M.] will be allowed to ship completed liners until November 1st. These will be distributed by the military as goodwill gestures from the soldiers to the local population. …  After November 1st, we can no longer ship them.

Thank you all for your awesome support of this very wonderful project over the past 5 years. Please use your skills and talents, care and love in other ways to support our troops.

For more information, visit citizensam.org. And keep checking back with us at TheStrengthBehindtheStrong.com, where we will bring you more ways to support our troops.

Most people look at a pile of ACUs or BDUs and think, “Ugh. More laundry.” Army wife Courtney Jordan took a more creative approach to her husband’s camo: She picked up scissors to remake his uniforms (retired ones, of course!) into flirty, fun pocketbooks. “I love the whole idea of keeping my soldier close and showing how proud I am of him and what he does for our country,” says Courtney, who sells her custom-made “Hero With Me” bags on etsy.com, an online marketplace exclusively for handmade crafts. Courtney is just one of many military spouses and supporters on etsy.com who sell items made from used and/or retired military uniforms. So if you’ve ever wanted to “wear” the uniform, here’s your chance! Check out these seven Etsy cuties.

#1. Uniformly pretty.  You can send Courtney your loved one’s old uniform — including name tape and patches —  and she’ll design a unique Hero with Me bag ($50) in your choice of fabrics and colors. Courtney stitches and sews from Fort Sill, Oklahoma, but will ship anywhere in the United States through her Etsy shop, A Silent Rank.  

This Hero with Me bag features a fashion-forward combination of turquoise and brown with camouflage; we especially love the touch of “support our troops” yellow. Use the Velcro on its front to add a unit patch.

#2. All buttoned up. At Etsy’s C&J Jewelry, an Army spouse sells handmade “I Love My Soldier” (or Airman, Marine, or Sailor) bracelets and necklaces (about $19–$29.99), which showcase buttons from military uniforms. 

The green buttons on this Air Force bracelet ($24.99) are from real military uniforms. "I get this question a lot," writes the seller on her esty.com site. "Yes, ACUs have buttons ... check your fly!"

#3. Camo for a cause. This pretty and functional Desert Camo Large Tote Bag ($42) is crafted from a tri-color desert camo pack cover. It’s the creation of Kellie Moreman, a National Guard mom who donates all proceeds from her camo bags and blankies to families of soldiers.

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To this civilian, military postal addresses look as if they are written in top-secret code. APO? AE? Ay yi yi! But deciphering the acronyms and abbreviations is actually quite simple and logical. Just as mail sent within the United States needs a city, state, and zip code, military mail requires three similar components: APO/FPO, AE/AP/AA, and a zip code. These are the basics.

#1. APO or FPO. These abbreviations indicate to which branch of the military the mail is being sent. Write it in the place you would normally put a city’s name.

• APO is short for Army/Air Force Post Office. As its name suggests, it delivers to members of the Army and Air Force. 
• FPO stands for Fleet Post Office. It delivers mail to Navy, Coast Guard, and Marine Corps personnel.

All military mail must be addressed to a specific serviceperson. (We blacked out the name on this letter, which has an obsolete address.) For security reasons, mail addressed to "Any Soldier" won't be delivered.

#2. AE, AP, or AA. These codes indicate the region of the world where a military member is serving. They take the place of a state abbreviation.

• AE stands for Armed Forces Europe, but delivers mail to Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and more. This is the code you would use if you send military mail to Iraq, Afghanistan, Germany, or Bahrain.
• AP stands for Armed Forces Pacific. Mail to South Korea, Japan, Australia, and the Philippines, for example, will have an “AP” address.
• AA stands for Armed Forces Americas, which includes military mail to Central and South America. 

#3. Zip code. Military mail uses zip codes, which are written in the same place as domestic zip codes. The first two digits of a five-digit military zip code tells you where the military mail is processed before heading out of the United States; the next three digits are specific to your serviceperson’s military unit.

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The Fourth of July takes on a special significance when our friends and family members are in the military. We understand in a very personal way the sacrifices generations of men and women have made to build this great country. Today we think of all those who are serving our country overseas, far from our picnics and fireworks. We especially remember the soldiers of the 108th MP Company out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, who are still many months away from returning from Iraq. 

This “Until Then” video tribute was sent to me during my husband’s first deployment to Iraq in 2006. If the angelic voices of the Brigham Young University choirs singing “Homeward Bound” don’t tug at your heart, then the images of our military men and women certainly will. Happy Independence Day!

To view the “Until Then” video (above) — plus other military tributes — visit www.gcsdistributing.com, then click ”tributes."

What important event is on your calendar this year? Your sister’s graduation from boot camp? A friend coming home on leave from Afghanistan? Track the time until day zero with these three countdown clocks for your phone, computer, and desk.

#1. Big Day Lite App 
Use it: On your iPhone
Price: Free
Monitor the “days until” your special occasion with the free Big Day Lite app, which you can customize with a title and your favorite picture. (We are partial to any photo with camo or babies.) There also is a paid version of this app called Big Day, which costs 99 cents; it has a few more bells and whistles and allows you to count down to multiple dates. But we found the free (“Lite”) version to be all we needed. Download Big Day Lite from iTunes.

Add your own photo and description to the free Big Day Lite iPhone app, which makes it doubly fun to count down to a special occasion.

#2. Soldier Returning Home Countdown Clock
Use it: On Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, and more
Price: Free 
Copy and paste the free HTML code from WishaFriend.com into your blog or social networking site so your friends can count down the remaining days, hours, minutes, and seconds along with you.

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Today is a great day: All of our Adopt an MP soldiers have homes! A big thank you to Debbie from Louisiana, whose family adopted our last soldier this week. She joins our other amazing volunteers, who include two World War II veterans. The 108th MP Company still has a long tour ahead, so stay tuned for more opportunities to help boost their morale. Next up: We’d like to do something creative to mark the 108th’s “halfway to home” point in October. Suggestions are welcome!

Jackson and Abigail from Iowa show off their homemade banner, which is being packed into a care package for their adopted soldier this weekend. These artists deserve a big “hooah!”

Pop quiz: What appears to be missing from this letter? It was sent from Iraq to the United States by one of our servicemen. 

When letters from locations such as Kuwait and Afghanistan arrive in your mailbox, you may notice that the military sender has written “free mail” where the stamp is usually affixed.

The answer is a stamp. But that’s not a problem for the U.S. Postal Service or the Military Postal Service, which offer “free mail” privileges for certain warriors who are serving outside the United States. Currently, those deployed to Afghanistan, Iraq, Qatar, Macedonia, and Uganda are among the members of our military who can send free mail. (The U.S. Postal Service website has a complete list of military locations with free mail.) It applies to letters and postcards only; our military men and women must pay postage to send packages home.

Don’t try this trick when sending letters from the USA, however. If you want your letters to get to your overseas sweetheart, you’ll need to add stamps.

How free mail impacts your care packages. Blank stationery (paper, cards, envelopes, postcards) is an excellent addition to boxes headed overseas. One of our Adopt an MP participants even includes a few self-addressed envelopes in her boxes to make it easier for her soldier to write back. But because postage is not required for a letter’s trip back to the States, she knows it’s smart — not stingy — to skip the stamps.    

Note: The envelope shown above was sent in 2006, so it doesn’t reveal information about an active military mailing address.

*Hey, we can all dream, can’t we?

Freedom may not be free, but the goodies you gather for your care packages can be. Get creative with these nine tips to fill a box without emptying your wallet.

#1. Popular magazines. Instead of tossing your magazines into a recycling bin, send them overseas. But don’t go digging in the basement to unearth your stack of Reader’s Digest magazines from the 1970s. If you’re not interested in reading it, chances are the troops aren’t either.

“General newsstand publications such as Maxim and Esquire, which regularly feature what the Greatest Generation might have called ‘pinups’ or ‘cheesecake,’ are ... highly sought after by troops in some areas,” commented Charlie Sherpa, a soldier who blogs at RedBullRising.com, after our “9 Most Wanted Care Package Items (and 3 items to skip)” post.  “You can also send automotive, humor, hunting, military history, and other magazines — they also have a lot of trade-and-swap value, with both U.S. and Allied personnel.”

Our secret to cheerful care packages? Tie a pretty ribbon around even the most ordinary objects, including recycled magazines.

#2. Catalogs. Help a female servicemember look forward to the day she can trade her BDUs for something prettier by shipping her the mail-order catalogs that land in your mailbox. Think of it as remote window shopping from Iraq or Afghanistan. Send favorites like J. Crew, Lands’ End, and Sundance Catalog. For cooks and bakers, save up catalogs from Williams-Sonoma. For gardeners, dig up some seed catalogs, such as Burpee.

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Last Friday, May 28, four-year-old Greta and six-year-old Devon (with a tiny bit of help from their mom, Jennifer) sent care packages to Iraq — including one to their Adopt an MP soldier. We got word that at least one of the boxes arrived in Baghdad yesterday, June 2. That’s five quick days, counting both the weekend and Memorial Day holiday. Kudos to the folks handling military mail!

Greta, 4, titled her masterpiece "Army Bunnies." The girl's got talent! It took just five days for a Priority Mail package with this picture to reach its destination in Iraq.

Greta and Devon’s packages were sent through the U.S. Postal Service using Priority Mail, which we have found is fast and cost-effective. One piece of advice we learned the hard way: Think twice before using Parcel Post mail. Sure, it may save you a few bucks, but the trade-off is transit time. Recently, a (non-military) birthday gift sent via Parcel Post took a whopping 21 days just to move from Des Moines, Iowa, to Boston. That’s more than enough time to turn homemade cookies in a care package from scrumptious to stale. 

Some couples fight about money or religion or who ate the last chocolate chip cookie. My husband and I argue over military bumper stickers and car magnets. I love them, he doesn’t. So, naturally, what was one of the first things I did when my soldier left on his first tour to Iraq? I put this sticker on my car window: “1/2 my heart is in Iraq.”

This is my (not-so-clean) Subaru sporting a "1/2 my heart is in Iraq" decal in 2006. Want one of your own? You can buy it — or one that is for Afghanistan — from MilitaryWives.com.I loved that sticker. In a strange way, it helped me feel connected to Kyle. But — and I’m not exaggerating — within 12 hours of my husband returning home from his tour, he’d scraped that sticker off our car. Any subsequent attempts by me to sneak a red-white-and-blue magnet or decal onto the car have been quickly thwarted.

While shopping last week at Hanscom Air Force Base just north of Boston, I found myself looking longingly at these bumper stickers, below. I love their strong colors and patriotic imagery. I feel my heart swell with gratefulness when I see signs like these on anyone’s car or truck or minivan. 

This Memorial Day weekend, tell us: Do you wear your military pride on your bumper, or do you prefer a more low-key approach? Vote below.

And if you would like one of the three stickers shown above, post a comment here by midnight on Monday, May 31. (The stickers are great taped to a door or tacked to a bulletin board if you don’t want to put them on a car.) Be sure to tell us which sticker you want. Three entries (one for each sticker) will be selected at random. Happy Memorial Day!

June 2010 update: A big “thank you” to everyone who helped us raise $1,410 for the Home Base Program.  

You don’t have to be a Red Sox fan to root, root, root for Boston this Sunday, May 23. That’s when the charitable Red Sox Foundation is hosting a Run to Home Base 9K to benefit the new Home Base Program. This critical program supports soldiers who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or traumatic brain injury (TBI).

Let's race! This Sunday's Run to Home Base 9K finishes at Fenway Park, home to the Boston Red Sox. It's a fundraiser for the new Home Base Program, which supports veterans with PTSD and TBI — and their families.

If you have a loved one who is suffering with PTSD or TBI, you know that these invisible wounds affect not only the serviceman or servicewoman, but also their families and friends. That is why more than 2,000 runners (including me) raised a minimum of $1,000 each for the Home Base Program. To learn more — and to get help if you need it — head over to the Home Base Program website. For details about the run (or walk/jog, in my case), check out my Run to Home Base webpage. Next up on my race-preparation list is deciding what message to put on my shirt. Suggestions are welcome!

It's care package heaven in this Navy pilot's office in Iraq: Two boxes of Utz chips and snacks, Girl Scout cookies, and a kid's drawing tacked to the wall.

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Call up your best buddy who’s heading off to boot camp, or your son who’s back from Iraq, and tell him you’d love to spend some quality time together this summer at historic Fenway Park in Boston. Juice up the deal by offering to pay for a pair of Red Sox tickets. Just be sure your soldier/sailor/airman/marine brings an active duty military ID so the two of you can score discounted tickets for $10 each. (Regular prices can be $50, $75, or much more.) Singing “Sweet Caroline” in the 8th inning — a Red Sox tradition — is that much sweeter when it costs less than three beers to get into the park.

Play ball! The view is great from this $10 SRO section at Fenway Park. Here’s the deal: At every regular season game, the Boston Red Sox set aside SRO (standing room only) tickets for active duty military personnel. The number of tickets varies, but it’s often around 200. Each serviceman or servicewoman can purchase a maximum of two tickets per game — one for them, one for you — at $10 each. It’s just one way the Red Sox say “thank you” to our military.

Here’s what you need to know before you head to the ballpark:

• Military SRO tickets go on sale two hours before game time. The ticket booth is at Gate B. Each person with an active duty military ID can buy two tickets. (Yes, they check IDs.)

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I’ve never liked to eat my own words, until now. But when I spotted the adorable, customizable ‘Message in a Cookie’ Cookie Cutters in the Williams-Sonoma catalog, I had to have them. Right away. And since we’re gearing up to make care packages for our Adopt an MP effort, this week seemed like an excellent time to try them out. (Join us! We still need volunteers.) So what could go wrong? Let me spell it out for you: P-L-E-N-T-Y. But if you avoid my mistakes, these cookies will become your new favorites — and a clever addition to an R&R or good-luck-in-boot-camp party.

These make-your-own-message cookie cutters are $19.95 at Williams-Sonoma.

The cookie cutter kit includes three cookie cutters: one heart, one star, and one scalloped rectangle. It also includes three full sets of alphabet letters, plus extras of popular letters, such as “s.” You can use those individual letters to make custom messages like “We missed u Private” or “Hooah CPT More.” Aren’t these cookies the cutest things ever? 

The tinted dough is fun and festive, but uncolored dough would be pretty too.

For perfectly pretty cookies the first time, follow these five tips.
#1. Watch your ABCs—and Es. Trouble can ensue because the individual letters must be slid into place backward and in reverse — essentially their mirror image — so that when they are stamped into cookies they read like English, not Pig Latin. Can you spot the two errors below? 

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Our adopted soldiers from the 108th MP Company (ABN/AASLT) are officially in Iraq. The countdown until they come home can begin! Our terrific group of volunteers will be sending out their first letters this week. Hooah! We still have 14 soldiers waiting to be adopted. If you are interested, please join us and Adopt an MP. Straight from Iraq, here is a picture of their “new” command post. Stay tuned for more updates.

At the Iraq command post of the 108th MP Company from Fort Bragg, it's been 90 degrees and humid this week. The building is small: 15 x 30 feet.

Talk about a perk-me-up: For just $2, you can give a deployed service member a much-needed caffeine fix through “Cup of Joe for a Joe.”  The program was brewed up by Green Beans Coffee, which operates coffee shops on U.S. military bases at home and abroad, including about 45 shops in Afghanistan and Iraq. (For all you closet Army Wife fans, Claudia Joy and Roxy stopped at a Green Beans Coffee shop on the fictional Fort Marshall Army base during last Sunday’s episode.) 

About 95 percent of the gifts though "Cup of Joe for a Joe" are delivered in Iraq and Afghanistan. The remainder go to those deployed in support of OIF or OEF in Kuwait, Qatar, Kyrgyzstan, and Djibouti, Africa, where Green Beans Coffee also has shops.

Buying a coffee is simple. Go to the Cup of Joe section of the Green Beans Coffee website, make a purchase of one or more $2 cups of coffee, and write a message to the recipient. Your gift triggers an email that is sent — with your note — to a randomly picked service member who has signed up for the program. The service member can then head to his or her nearby Green Beans to pick up a free coffee, courtesy of you.

Now, the soldier can use that $2 credit for coffee, of course, or a tea. But some use it to offset the cost of a MOAC, or “Mother of All Coffees.” This signature Green Beans Coffee drink is guaranteed to keep our forces on high alert. It is four shots of espresso topped with the house blend coffee and served in a giant 24-ounce cup.

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Oprah uses Skype to video chat with out-of-town guests on her talk show. Contestants on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire use it to “Ask the Expert” for help. But the biggest fan of Skype just might be a five-year-old named Joel. When his Navy father did a 12-month tour in Baghdad, Joel loved to Skype with his far-away dad. Joel could spend an hour reading to his dad from his literary favorites, which this month include Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants. And it didn’t cost a penny.

Skype is free, easy-to-install, simple-to-use software that lets you use your computer to video chat — at zero charge — with people all over the world. Joel would tell you (if his vocabulary was a little more advanced) that Skype is a surefire pick-me-up when you are missing a deployed loved one. There is not much that beats hearing and seeing the person you’re missing most. You simply open Skype, click “call,” and the computer of the person you are calling rings, just like a telephone. Through your computer’s camera, you can see the person you’re talking to, whether they are in Germany or South Korea or Guam.

Brothers Joel, 5, and Gabe, 4, are pros on Skype: It's one way they stayed connected with their dad while he was in Iraq. These screenshots show the boys on a recent night talking to Aunt Christine (yes, that's me in the corner of the window).

Get set up this weekend. You need a computer with a built-in camera and microphone; many newer computers have both. Or you need a webcam to attach to your computer.

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Congratulations to the blog “A Little Pink in a World of Camo,” which we wrote about last week. You must have voted in the MILblogging awards, because it won for best military blog by a U.S. military spouse. We imagine this prize is of small consolation to blogger Rachel Porto, whose Marine husband was killed last month in Afghanistan. Nonetheless we are glad she won.  

How does a military spouse live after the death of her husband? Rachel Porto is tackling that tough issue on her blog "A Little Pink in a World of Camo."

Here’s one trick for getting through loved ones’ deployments: Don’t count up how many days they’ve been gone. Instead count down the days until you can throw a welcome-home party. (During my husband’s first deployment, I spent the four months before his return obsessing over handmade party programs, bacon-wrapped shrimp appetizers, and the 100-person guest list. Yes, I went a bit overboard. But it was all for a good cause!) A fabulous party favor? Fortune cookies with personalized, military-theme messages. 

Custom fortune cookies can be filled with your own military-specific messages. You'll garner a few chuckles when you write “Confucius says” in front of just about any message.

Shop for these sweet treats online. A Google search for “custom fortune cookies” will locate dozens of online cookie companies. We are partial to Good Fortunes, Inc. (goodfortunecookies.com); we ordered cookies from them for a big bash, and they were a huge hit. They only make vanilla cookies, but they’re tasty and the traditional color works well with red-white-and-blue party schemes. Get 300 cookies with up to 17 different you-write-them fortunes for $40 plus shipping. (Want to try them first? They’ll send samples for $6, which includes shipping.)

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Military wife Rachel Porto has been blogging at “A Little Pink in a World of Camo” since August 2009. Rachel chronicled her wedding to the Marine of her dreams, Corporal Jonathan Porto, the birth of the couple’s daughter in January, and her husband’s deployment to Afghanistan. Three weeks ago, she wrote what must have been her most difficult post: She announced that her 26-year-old husband died while serving our country. Her blog — on which she continues to share her grief while also raising money for a Run for the Warriors 5K — is nominated for a MILbloggies award in the U.S. military spouse category. Give Rachel a virtual hug by heading over to Milblogging.com to vote for her blog. Voting ends at midnight on Wednesday, April 7, just two days away. 

Military life can be heartbreaking, as the blog "A Little Pink in a World of Camo" testifies.

Rachel shared her raw emotions in her March 17 post, titled “I Will Always Be a Marine Wife.”

I am being forced to do something that no 23 year old woman should ever have to do. I am being forced to do something that no one should ever have to do, not at this early in life, especially. I am being forced to lay the love of my life, my saving grace, my entire world to rest.

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