20 Practical Ways You Can Support the Troops in Iraq and Elsewhere
by Sandy Doell
There are things we can all do to support the troops:
1. Since you can no longer send mail addressed to “Any Soldier” (the post office won’t accept it), you can instead:
- Network among your friends and family. Ask if anyone knows a soldier who is deployed. Write a letter expressing your thanks to that person. Ask if there’s anything he needs and offer to help out.
- If you do have a soldier in your circle of acquaintance, ask if he or she knows of another soldier in his outfit who doesn’t get mail. Ask for permission to send that person packages and letters.
- Contact church groups and community organizations to see if anyone in your area has organized a project for supporting the deployed soldiers.
- If you live near a military base, go talk to a chaplain to find out what you can do to support soldiers on the base who are far from home. Maybe you could even invite a lonely soldier to dinner.
2. You can show your support through some great online organizations:
- Fisherhouse.org
- Heromiles, org
- Adoptasoldier.org
- Booksforsoldiers.com
- Supportasoldier.org
- Defendamerica.mil
- Americasupportsyou.com
3. Find a soldier’s family in your community and find out what they need. It might be as simple as cutting wood for the fireplace or providing some transportation or babysitting, or it might be help with tax forms.
4. Just pay attention to the news. Know what’s happening in the war. Visit icasualties.org/oif. It’s easy to concentrate on the politics behind the war and forget the guy out there patrolling a dangerous street. It’s easier still to ignore the whole thing and care only about soap operas and football games, but our children are living and dying in a hostile place, and we owe it to them to at least pay attention.
5. When you do find a soldier to send packages to, be aware of their needs. They need and want things like:
They also need:
Gold Bond foot powder
Loofah sponges
Nail clippers
Lotions and creams especially made for foot care (peppermint-scented is good)
Foot soaks
6. The soldiers are far from home but still need some entertainment. Some good items that are appreciated and help alleviate the boredom are:
Board games
Gameboys
Books
CDs and DVDs
Crossword puzzle books, sudoku, word search
7. And to supplement their menu, you can send some food items such as:
Salsa
Tuna salad kits
Aerosol cheese
Cookies, cupcakes, and candy (avoid chocolate during the hotter months)
Gatorade, Kool-Aid, powdered drink mixes—they need to drink a lot of water and this helps
8. Many soldiers tell stories of strangers coming up to them in airports, shaking their hands, offering to buy them a drink, a meal, or even pressing money into their hands. Here’s another suggestion:
Next time you are standing in line at the post office and you see someone juggling a box and a customs form, about to send that box to a war zone—offer to pay the postage for them. Postage is a big expense when someone is deployed, and the more help families can get paying for it, the more packages they can send.
9. Go to letssaythanks.com and just fill out the form and hit Send. A soldier will receive a personalized greeting from you with your name and hometown on it.
10. Get creative. Use your talent. Write letters, burn CDs, make DVDs. Take pictures. Soldiers especially love hearing from children. Make sending packages to soldiers a family project. Your children will learn something about caring for those who care for them.
11. And, sure, put those bumper stickers on your car, tie ribbons around trees, fly the flag.
12. Pray.
More tips just for families:
13. Letters from home are the item most requested by soldiers, so write often.
14. Allow plenty of time for packages to arrive for holidays. Normal shipping time to the Middle East is about two weeks for a priority box.
15. Family members should invest in a detailed map of the Middle East. When you hear news reports, you'll be able to identify the exact location of activity.
16. Keep a list of discussion topics near the phone. When your loved one calls at 4 a.m., you won't waste time collecting your thoughts.
17. You can live on "Iraqi time" with the click of a computer mouse. Go to worldtimeserver.com and know for sure what time it is in Anbar Province. Go to weather.cnn.com to know what the weather is like.
18. Make sure you have as much communication technology as you can afford—computers, Blackberrys, cell phones, call waiting, call forwarding, web cams, instant messaging. Use as much as you can figure out. The more often you communicate, the better you will both feel.
19. The Red Cross will help you make arrangements for your soldier to come home for certain emergencies, such as a death in the family.
20. Most important thing you can do for yourself: Find a support group of other people with deployed loved ones. If you can't find a support group, start one.
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About the Author
Sandy Doell is the mother of a soldier who was deployed to Iraq in 2004 and from this experience she wrote Mom's Field Guide: What You Need to Know to Make It Through Your Loved One's Military Deployment. You can find information about the book at http://www.momsfieldguide.com. Sandy also has a website called While Our Children Serve (http://www.whileourchildrenserve.com) which offers information and support to military families and others who wish to support our troops.
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© Copyright 2007 Sandy Doell
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