A Little More Specific

Since my husband was sparse with the details. 

Books: Make sure you send paperbacks.  Most likely he will leave the books in Iraq for the next set of soldiers and he feels less guilty about doing that with paperbacks than hardbacks.  He likes pretty much anything sci-fi related, military history/fiction, authors like Morgan Llywelyn and Harry Turtledove are good as well.

Comfort Items:  Gee, he couldn't be any vaguer there, could he.  Things like CDs (country or classical), magazines, and whatnot.  Once again, keep in mind that these are things that may never make it back.  The desert sand is supposed to be very hard on electrical equipment.  If you feel so inclined, he has a Gameboy Advance there.  No DVD player because he doesn't want to spend $100 on something that might not last a year there.

A few things he didn't mention:

• Single serving packs of food that he can take on guard with him.  He likes any type of fruit, but not pudding.
• Hard candy is better than chocolate, which melts in the heat.
• He likes Little Debbie Star Crunches (which, I know, I said no chocolate...).
• Toys for the local kids are good for relations.  Not anything fancy; buy a bucket of cheap dinos at the store and seperate it into individual bags so that he can just reach in his pocket and give out a few to each kid.  No toy soldiers or guns or anything like that.  Cheap toy cars maybe?  You get the idea.

Packages take about a month to reach him, so don't send anything that might mold before then.  Check out the Oconus site (http://www.oconus.com/main/carepackages.asp) for more care package ideas.  Though, if anyone sends him "motivational pair of panties" we're likely to have words.  =-)

I can't think of anything else right now.  I'm sure Nora will add to the list when she wakes up and drinks some coffee.