Gift for a Soldier

W

Woland

500+ Posts
I'm driving down to Waco on the 1st to see my cousin off to Iraq. He thinks he will be looking for bombs and patrolling the road from Kuwait to Baghdad. Any gift ideas? His brothers have already bought him body armor.

This is a big deal for my generation of the family. It is a tight knit group of cousins and (so far) we all are still on this earth.
 
Hopefully buffsoldier will see this thread & chime in, since he spent a year+ over there. I do remember him saying that Otter Pops, Pop Ice (or any of the other things like that) wewre VERY popular. While he was over there we'd also make DVDs of football games & send those to him since he took his laptop w/ DVD player over.
 
I'll be there in Waco on the 1st also to send off my good buddy. Make sure your cousin has a good digital camera. I'm giving my buddy a portable voice recorder so that he can take notes and record his impressions. He's bringing a laptop to download the recordings...not all soldiers can do this. In Desert Storm, we loved the Game Boy...I'm sure it would be a good gift now also. An IPOD type device would be like gold to him.

Avoid sending the troops sweets, because they don't need the calories and they will eat well over there for the most part. Send him beef jerky, peanuts, etc. just nothing that will rot your teeth.

BL
 
Bottom Line: We were pondering getting an IPOD for my sister-in-law who is going over after the first of the year. Would we need to preload the tunes on the IPOD or would it be possible for her to do it while there?

She is smokin' hot and one of the coolest chicks I know. I pray for her daily and anything we can do to make her more comfortable would be great.
 
Ideally, a person would want to load all their favorite songs on the Ipod before going over. I don't know if the Ipod can transfer to another Ipod, in that case she could get songs from others. I doubt she will have the time or resources to acquire a song library while in Iraq. Another possibility is for you or other person to load the songs for her and then send the Ipod to her in Iraq. Best case is she loads all her songs before she goes over.

BL
 
I think a photo album would be very appreciated... Maybe go around to the family and put a shitload of photos on a disk or upload them to Shutterfly, etc.
 
Having been there, done that......

Like 96 Buff said, Otter Pops/Pop-Ice's are muy bueno. Everyone (or at least every unit) has a freezer there. The feeling of biting into a Popice during the 15 minutes you'll get to yourself at the end of the day is pure heaven.
Pre-paid phone cards are good, but wait until he gets where he's gonna be and find out who's running the phone center. (Most of the time it'll be AT&T, but you never know).
Drink mixes. Water is f'n boring. Most people sent Gatorade in the variety of flavors, but frankly, I preferred Kool-Aid.
Beef jerky is always appreciated.
I had one friend send a big box of Rice Krispie treats while I was there. I swear, I felt like a crack dealer, people were hounding me for a "hit"....
If you wanna send him off with something, a good digital camera is key. Don't get him one with a telescoping lens, the sand'll **** it up in a heartbeat. If he doesn't have a computer to download the pix to, be prepared to purchase and send him a new SD or Flash card for the camera about once a month or once every 2 months.
The iPod idea is also nice. But make it a big one, at least 20 Gig. Odds are the music he loads onto it is gonna haveta last him a while, so he's gonna want to load a bunch in order to not hear the same song every other day.
A few people got those $5 hand held, tyco made football/baseball/basketball games. Really popular for about a month, which in my mind makes it worth the 5 bucks and the 5 bucks for shipping.
When he gets there, about once a month, send him some good, high-quality toilet paper. Nothing annoyed me faster than antiquing my *** with the 100-grit Army issue TP while tracers are going overhead. But perhaps I've disclosed too much detail.....

Clothing ideas:
Socks and underwear. Boxerbrief kind. Chafage sucks serious left-handed, hyper-extended *** in the desert.
UnderArmor HeatGear t-shirts. Great in the desert heat.
UnderArmor ColdGear longsleeve shirts. Necessary 'til about Feb. You wouldn't believe how cold 40-50 feels after you've lived in 130+ temps for about 4 months.
Shooter's gloves. Not only for the obvious reason, but to keep the sun off your hands. And to keep the skin from broiling and peeling off your bones when you grab a hot piece of metal while dismounting a Deuce-and-a-half, Bradley, whatever.

That's a good start. If you have any questions at all, please PM me and I'll give you whatever help I can.
 
Thanks for the help. He got three long-sleeve Under Armour shirts. I am going to print out this thread and pass it around the family.
 
In response to:

He thinks he will be looking for bombs and patrolling the road from Kuwait to Baghdad. Any gift ideas? His brothers have already bought him body armor.

Are you kidding me?

After almost 2 years in Iraq and families are still having to BUY body armor for their loved ones?! WTF! Nice to see that the Army is taking care of the troops.
mad.gif


I'll keep your cousin in my prayers.

As an aside, when I was deployed to Saudi Arabia my wife sent me letters that were sprayed with her perfume. I actually had guys offer me money for the envelopes. I didn't sell the envelopes.

Seriously, there is nothing worse than mail call and seeing a guy with a wife and kids at home not receive a single letter during his deployment. For the love of God, write to your cousin and make sure that others do the same! The subject matter of the letter is irrelevant. Just knowing that someone back home cares and remembers you is all that matters. Letters from home are something he will treasure.
 
Buff: Thanks so much for the post. We sent a digital camera and a pre-loaded IPOD with my sister-in-law. The other ideas are great and would have never thought about most of them.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Weekly Prediction Contest

* Predict HORNS-AGGIES *
Sat, Nov 30 • 6:30 PM on ABC

Recent Threads

Prediction Results Threads

2024 Schedules

Back
Top