Sir or Ma'am:
My name is MSgt. Hugo A. *****. I am currently deployed to Afghanistan. I have recently received a second package from y'all and I wanted to express my gratitude. This was especially exciting for me because I am from Tucson. Like the previous package this package was shared with my team and all found something particularly special in this package. I was especially pleased to find an Arizona Edition Biker Information Guide as approximately 2 days ago I purchased a 2009 Harley Davidson FXDL/Low Rider through the PX new car sales. One final thing PLEASE pass along OUR sincerest thanks to everyone involved in sending our package especially all of the children that wrote letters (the letters were especially appreciated). Thank you again.

I received an OUTSTANDING care package from your organization today, and I just wanted to say Thank you!! There are so many people out there who constantly show us their support and I cannot tell you how much it means to us!

I am a NAVY Search and Rescue swimmer, currently 4 months into my year tour here in Kabul, Afghanistan. My friends and family always ask me if there is anything I need and I usually tell them, most of the snacks and stuff we receive out here are from outside sources, from people who just want to show they care. So it saves my family from having to do any extra shopping, Thank you!! Please pass this to anyone who may want to read it. Thank you again!!

This will be a long letter. I wanted to illustrate a typical week in the life of the 40th ADT so everyone will have a good idea of what we do and who is receiving the care packages you put together. There is no way I can reference everyone in the ADT in this letter, but I’m going to talk about a few people by name just so you’ll know that we are real people here.

This letter highlights the week of December 14th thru the 19th when 24 members of the 64 member 40th ADT (Agricultural Development Team) went north to conduct a watershed survey and a health fair for farm animas. The wealth of rural Afghanistan is in its farm animals. People may not own any land and live in a tent, but they can be wealthy in animals. If disease strikes these animals a family could not only be poverty stricken over night they can also starve.

I would like to tell you Thank-you for the package my son Zachary received, from PFH. He is a Cavalry Scout with 3rd ACR. While stationed up around the Mosel area he got his package. He called home and asked about it and knowing my son he is very cautious about opening anything from someone, or someplace he doesn't know. I assured him it was safe. Zach and his group were all over the Northern part of Iraq when they were deployed, they were not near anything so the packages they got were a real blessing.

Address each letter "Dear Hero" or "Dear Defender of Freedom" or such, avoiding titles that would limit who we can send the letter to (for instance, if it says Dear Marine, we cannot send it to an Airman, or if it says Dear Soldier, we cannot send it to a Marine...it would be an insult).

Thank him for his service to our great country and tell him why you are thanking him. For instance, one gentleman wrote that the selflessness of our men and women in Uniform inspired him to become a better husband and father. A schoolchild wrote that she admired the bravery of the soldiers and wanted to join the Service when she grew up. A mother wrote a note of thanks for helping her to sleep better at night because she knew her children were safe in America, and America is safe because of our Heroes willing to defend it.

The troops love seeing who wrote the letter, so feel free to include a family snapshot or photo with your letter.  Note we are NOT looking for pin-up type photos here, just family snapshots of Life In America. They get very lonely to see fellow Americans who are not in uniform!

Pictures drawn by children are also very popular to include. It's a poignant reminder of who they are fighting to protect.

Obviously, please refrain from negative thoughts or comments about the war such as, "I hope you don't get hurt." And also please refrain from any political statements. We have soldiers who are Democrats, we have soldiers who are Republicans, we have soldiers who are Independents, we have soldiers who are Libertarians. We do not want to insult any one of them, the idea is to SUPPORT them, so we as Packages From Home volunteers check our political hats at the door, so to speak.

Sign your letter or card and include your return addressor if a school or group the school or group leaders address. That way any response can be shared with the group. It is not guaranteed that the soldier will be able to write back to you, but I know for a fact that they do try.

If you want to make it easier for the soldier to respond to your letter, attach to your letter a self addressed return envelope with a blank piece of paper inside it.  You don't have to stamp the envelope, just put your name and address on it so the soldier doesn't have to copy the info. They can mail letters for free from a combat zone. The blank paper helps because they do not always have access to a stationery store, to put it mildly.

Do not seal your letters.  They must be open for inspection. If you or your group is writing more than one letter, put all the letters into a larger envelope and mail them to:
 
Packages From Home
Attention: Letter Project
1201 S 7th Ave, Suite 50
Phoenix AZ 85007

When we receive the letters, they will each be inspected/approved and then included in boxes we send to the troops. Each letter will go in a separate box, along with food snacks, games or toiletry items.

We here at Packages From Home would like to thank the many volunteers, Eagle Scouts, Girl Scout troops, donors and all the many organizations who have given their time and money to help with our cause.

From a Schoolchild

Thank you for all you have done for me. I am thanking you. This is all the people that are thanking you: my Mom and Dad and all of my family. You are like my best friend. Do not be scared. God will help you. Do not be very scared. I am sure you are going to protect us. Thank you for saving our Country.

From a Radio Talk Show Host

There are a few things you should know about how tens of millions of us back home feel about you and the fight you are waging. These things need to be said, especially now, given the fact that the head of one of America's two major political parties has announced that the war in Iraq is lost.

This war has not been lost. What has happened is that many Americans, for all sorts of reasons -- some out of simple fatigue, some because they do not believe that war solves anything, some out of deep loathing for the present administration -- do not believe that what you are doing is worth doing.

You know that what you are doing is worth continuing. You see on an almost daily basis the faces of people who count on you to help them make a freer society than they have ever known. You know that your presence in Iraq is all that stands between numberless men, women and children and a horrible death. But, for whatever reasons, the fate of these people and their country do not matter to those who feel you are wasting your time and our nation's resources in Iraq.

You know that the fight you wage is worth waging. You know that you are not, by and large, fighting Iraqis who do not want you there but fighting people from other countries who come into Iraq in order to blow up and maim as many innocent Iraqis as possible.

You know that you are fighting the most vicious and primitive ideology in the world today. It is the belief that one's God wants his followers to maim, torture and murder in order to spread a system of laws that sends societies back to a moral and intellectual state that is pre-civilization. You know that the war you wage against these people and their totalitarian ideology is also necessary because a society unwilling to fight for its values does not have values worth sustaining. And for that reason, you in Iraq and many of us back home are worried about America.

You know that there is real good and real evil in the world. You have seen both more than any of us at home will probably see in a lifetime. Why so many in America and the West generally no longer believe that there is good and evil, let alone in the importance of having good vanquish evil, is a subject for a book. But that is the problem here. So when, God willing, you return healthy and victorious, you will have another battle to wage -- on behalf of moral clarity. In that regard we are losing our way. Millions of our fellow Americans -- often the best educated -- do not understand that those who send young people to blow up weddings, kindergartens, market places and college libraries in the promise of a paradise filled with young women are the Nazis of our time.

You know all these things. And tens of millions of us back home also know these things.

We see you as the best and brightest of our society. Even The New York Times, one of the mainstream media publications that do not understand the epic battle you are waging, acknowledged in an article by one of its embedded correspondents that few Americans of your age can come close to you in maturity, wisdom or leadership abilities.

It is unfortunate that the battle for moral clarity and moral courage in America is as divisive as the battle for freedom is in Iraq. But that is the nature of the world we live in. And it has ever been so. "Woe unto those who call evil good and good evil," wrote the Prophet Isaiah about 2,500 years ago. Not much has changed in two and a half millennia.

So Isaiah would be proud of you. Indeed, as a religious person, I believe with all my heart and soul that your work to uproot the greatest evil of our time and enable a people to build the first free Arab Muslim country is as holy, if not holier, as almost anything a minister, priest or rabbi does back home.

You probably knew all this. But you need to hear it anyway. That, and thank you. Thank you very much.