Saturday, January 26, 2008

Military Mail Story

I was over at SpouseBuzz and saw this blog about military mail. It reminded me of something that happened during Gunner's first deployment to Iraq.

My friend Peggy always makes sure to flood Chris' inbox while in the desert, with letters, cards, packages, etc. (Thank goodness for friends and my family that do this!) She also makes sure to send him things like birthday cards for the kids, for me, anniversary cards to send home to me, Valentine's Day cards....everything, so he doesn't have to try and hunt it down. (For my birthday she told me that she had to search and search for cards for him to mail to me that didn't start out "When I look into your eyes every morning..." or "I love to spend every day with you...")

Peggy also sent him games to help pass the time. About 5 months or so into the first deployment she told me that she had gotten off a package containing numerous board games. She kept worrying that he wasn't going to get it. She kept asking me and I kept asking Gunner. No package. Mail was pretty slow at that time so that didn't help matters. She kept bugging me and I assured her she was worrying for nothing. Still no package on Gunner's end.

Then there was a fire. I don't remember all the details but a mail truck burned and thousands of letters and packages were lost. Peggy *knew* her package was on that truck. Still no package.

Gunner finally called a few weeks later and told me he had received the strangest package from Peggy. I asked him about it and he said it was a box full of games but there was scorch marks all over the outside of the box!

I call it Peggy's law.

4 comments:

Old Cowboy Dan said...

Atta way Peggy!

Anonymous said...

I was so worried about that box. I had spent forever picking the games. Do you remember me calling from the game aisle at Target asking for advice? I think you thought I had finally lost it.

When I read about the mail fire in Stars and Stripes online, I *knew* that Gunner's box was among the casualties. It had to be. It had already been at least three or four times as long as it took the other boxes to arrive! Thankfully his was only scorched.

Remember everyone reading this, don't pack batteries in boxes being shipped to Iraq in the summertime . It's a fire hazard : ) You don't want to be responsible for burning pallets of mail from home, do you?

Did Gunner pack the Travel Scrabble for this trip? I think that was his favorite from the box...

Anonymous said...

My first time commenting with my new identity and I mess up the display name. I think that fits in to your new Label of "Peggy's Law" too ABW :)

Gypsy at heart said...

Between board games from ABW's friend and baseball equipment, etc from Uncle Dan, it's a wonder Gunner had time to fight the bad guys.....or maybe it is the other way around, Gunner hardly had time to play games....

We support our soldier!!