Military Mailings, Part 1

I'll preface this post by stating for the record that I am not an expert on sending mail to our Armed Services.

I am a sister.  This post is about my personal adventures in sending mail to Afghanistan.  Unfortunately, I did not take any photos, but I did send quite a bit of mail.

My brother was deployed from March to October of 2011.  I started with sending cards.  Just like with my Auntie Pat, I prepped a stack to mail in advance, the goal being one card a week.  I will state publicly and for the the record that the selection of Cards for Troops at Hallmark sucks out loud if you're not the girlfriend of a soldier.

The first box I mailed was an Easter box filled with grass and some of those molded paper eggs from Michael's that I had Hailey, Preston and Emily decorate with markers.  Lesson one in mailing boxes overseas: you need to complete a customs form.

At some point my brother specifically requested 60 stainless Dunkin Donuts mugs, which I promptly shipped out.

About halfway through his deployment I figured out that he would get a box in about a week.  Envelopes would take longer, but a box would get there in 5 or 6 days.

Thus began my adventures in mailing food to Afghanistan.  I think the first thing I did was send cupcakes with frosting.  I went to my local post office and asked for a poster tube.  I wrapped each cupcake individually in plastic wrap, padded the bottom of the tube, and literally loaded the cupcakes into the tube like ammo.  Then I topped it off with more packing peanuts and a container of my non-dairy buttercream.

Apparently it was a huge hit.  From then on, I mailed food once a week.  I would bake and mail the same day, waiting just until it was cool enough to handle and I was confident the heat wouldn't melt my packing materials.  I mailed quick breads, cupcakes, brownies, more cupcakes, more frosting, break and bake cookies... I essentially went down the baking aisle and the refrigerated dough section and picked anything that looked good.  I mailed six bottles of Del's Lemonade and only had one break.

My mail clerk, Tom, became a good friend.  He loved hearing about what I was mailing to my brother and supplied me with priority mail tubes because they were free.  Every Saturday I would pay Tom a visit.  I was really just helping get myself through the deployment as best I could, trying to feel a little less powerless in the situation.  I like to think that I helped my brother become the most popular guy on base :-)

The last thing I sent to him was a piñata and some wiffle bats.  Officially the largest thing I have ever mailed.  I walked by a display at WalMart and I thought "I could totally mail one of those."  So I stuffed that thing with as much candy as it would hold.  It weighed a ton.  And off it went and it got there just before he left.

To be continued...

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