EDGEWATER -- A friend forwarded a request from a military friend of hers in Afghanistan telling her they were hit really hard and lost all their personal things. He said they needed towels, razors, and anything personal anyone would send to them. Turns out there are 100 people in his company who lost their stuff.
Mom and I went out and bought a raft of things we thought they’d need plus some goodies for them to enjoy, packed them all up and got them ready to go but the boxes were too heavy for us so we asked a friend’s husband if he would drag them to the post office for us. That happened today and to my dismay my friend called and said they couldn’t send the boxes because they had to have customs forms filled out to the specific items not just a general list. She was afraid to not put something on the custom forms so was wanting to know what to do.
The post office people also told her foodstuffs were quarantined. It would appear the government not only does not replenish these missing items for our military in the field, but also gives we who are trying to send things a hassle to boot. Now we wait until next week when I can go get some large flat rate boxes and go to my friend’s house where we will repack and itemize each box according to these rules so we can finally mail the needed items.
The company will be back in the states by the time we get the boxes over there since what I read says anywhere from seven days to two weeks transit to Afghanistan. I already waited a week for my friend’s husband to be free during the day to bring the original boxes to post office. Now it will be sometime next week before they are finally mailed.
Seems to me the military should make it easier for friends and family to send things to those serving our country. They x-ray the packages so they know nothing is in the boxes that will hurt anyone. All the personnel overseas want goodies from home so why quarantine that stuff?
Several years ago Mom and I sent a couple of packages to a serviceman in Afghanistan and did not go through all this falderal. These poor guys need this stuff yesterday and here I am dealing with red tape trying to help. Many people would just give up and not jump through the hoops.
That’s sad.
People willing to support and supply our troops should be helped not stymied by rules and regulations. You can be assured I will persevere and these items will get to the men. I just think things should be different and wanted you to know how difficult the mailing to our servicemen and women is these days.