Items to send can be divided into three catagories: food, hygiene, and entertainment.

Food includes snacks of all types, candy, dried fruit, chips, dips, cans of soup
with pull-tops and Easy Mac, packages of tuna or those little packets of
tuna salad and crackers, etc.  In the winter, consider cocoa mix and
instant coffee (include creamer and sugar).  After March,
chocolate becomes soup in Iraq. Also spice packets, like the kind you get from Del Taco or
Taco Bell.  It's amazing how much better an MRE tastes when it doesn't taste
like an MRE at all.

Aim for smaller sized units.  For example, you can buy an entire package of
Oreos, or you can buy a mini package that has six cookies in it.  It's
easier to divvy up several mini packages of Oreos.  It's easier to shove a
mini package of Oreos in your pocket before you go out on patrol.  And it's
easier to eat a mini package of Oreos before sand gets in the cookies.

Hygiene includes disposable razors, toothbrushes and paste, sample sizes of
shampoo and soap, dental floss, hand lotion, lip balm, and toilet paper
(remove the tube for easier packing, or fill the tube with breakable items,
like small bottles of Tabasco, sealed in a zip-lock bag).  It also includes
over-the-counter medicines like Advil or Tylenol, Pepto-Bismol, Tums,
Band-Aids, athlete's foot cream, sun tan lotion (45 SPF or higher), bug
spray, hand lotion, Halls, Kleenex, etc.  I'm also told (by a former
Marine) that paint brushes (like the kind you use to paint rooms) are excellent for
cleaning rifles, but you might have to tell your recipient what it's for.
Toothbrushes are excellent for cleaning boots, and I send a new one about
every other month. Send toothbrushes regularly.  Besides the fact that they get gritty, the
old ones are great for polishing boots.

Entertainment includes AA-batteries, decks of cards, paper, envelopes,
pens, puzzle magazines, travel games, books, magazines, maybe DVD's or CD's or
PlayStation or XBox games.  For those last things, wait until you "know"
your soldier and then ask.  You don't want to send Xbox games to a unit
that only has a PlayStation.

Soldiers also enjoy getting phone cards.  Phone cards need to be AT&T, the
only service that works from the combat zones.  You can purchase cards
online at http://www.angelsstore.org <http://www.angelsstore.org/> .   You
can also purchase them from places like Costco and Sam's Club and the Post
Office.  Remember that it costs several "minutes" for each minute of talk
time from overseas to the US.  A 20 minute phone card will barely get a
soldier a 2 minute call home.



You might also send weather appropriate items of apparel such as mittens
and socks in the winter, tan or desert-camo bandanas and shower shoes
(flip-flops/zuris) in the summer.


Things Not to Send
Do not send alcohol or foods containing alcohol.  Do not send things in
spray cans such as shaving cream (it comes in tubes, too).  They tend to
explode in the heat.  Do not send certain types of magazines.  I don't want
to use words that might catch in your spam filter, but magazines should not
bare the bathing suit bottom area and for women should not display the
nipples.  There are some magazines that feature racy photos, like FHM.
These magazines are OK, if you personally do not feel uncomfortable sending
them.  Personally, I send Time, Entertainment Weekly, and Sports Illustrated.