I receive many questions about Internet access for deployed soldiers to Afghanistan and Iraq and hope this information will be a help.

Keep in mind your soldiers should always find out before deployment what is available at the deployment location.

Internet access in Afghanistan and Iraq is delivered via satellite broadband. The Internet signal is received through a special satellite VSAT modem which is usually set up in a building or tent.

Internet access for soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq is usually available via the following methods.

• Internet cafes - Available at some bases. Soldiers can expect to pay $5 to $10 per hour for use and spend time waiting their turn.
• MWR (moral welfare and recreation) - Most deployment locations have an MWR. There are usually a few computers for free Internet access and sometime wireless is available. Troops are allowed 20 – 30 minutes pers session and there is usually a wait. If they bring your own computer and use the wireless, they may experience the slowest Internet ever because so many people are trying to share the bandwidth.
• Personal Internet access – Soldiers can have Internet access in their living quarters. It is very expensive. The Internet access and expense is shared with other soldiers. I know of one example in Afghanistan where many soldiers share the Internet bandwidth and expense of $60 per month per person. Another situation in Iraq, each person pays $100 per month. It just depends on how many people are sharing and what the cost is per month.
  With personal Internet access, each soldier has their own laptop computer and all access is wireless.The soldiers are typically responsible for getting the equipment up and running.

If your son or daughter is getting ready for deployment, they should find out ahead of time what will be available at their deployment location. Soldiers in remote outposts do not have access to Internet.

Internet access is a morale booster for deployed soldiers! We are fortunate to have Internet access available at all. In previous wars, letter writing was the only form of communication and letters were received every few weeks. I am thankful for Internet for deployed soldiers! HOOAH!

When a soldier in Iraq wanted to send his kids a gift, he was limited as to what he had access to: a couple of band aids and some sun screen! It didn’t matter too much, his kids were thrilled to received anything at all! That story is the inspiration behind “Dog Tags for Kids”!

The Dog Tags for Kids project is dedicated to helping United States Service men and women in harm’s way, to connect with their children at home. The idea is to send something to a deployed Mom or Dad that they can easily send back to their kids!

Dog tags were just perfect! Each one is engraved with “With Love From Dad, U.S. Army, Iraq 2010″. (or Mom; or Kuwait or Afghanistan). The tags are small enough to easily fit in an envelope and send home.
The dog tags must come from the parents so all dog tags are sent to Iraq, Kuwait, or Afghanistan at the request of the service members. Then the service members can send one to their child at home.

Rose Sliepka is the amazing woman behind this grassroots project that depends entirely on volunteers and donations to continue the missions. Rose actually engraves all of the tags and has volunteers in California that help bag them and box them for shipping.

Each parent soldier that is in harm’s way can receive a dog tag at no charge!

Since the project’s beginning, they have now sent over 500,000 tags to our men and women fighting in harm’s way. Soldier’s love sending them and their kids love receiving them!

How YOU can help:

• Request tags for deployed soldiers
• Make a monetary donation or learn more
• We need your votes! You can help Dog Tags for Kids win $2500 for their project which will help supply another 5000+ tags that will result in a lot of smiles! Simply click here and vote for Rose Sliepka from Lanacaster, CA who has unselfishly dedicated herself to this wonderful program. Thank you!

The national media finally picked up the news, and it ran on Fox stations across the country.

The Army uses abbreviations for most everything. You may have heard the abbreviations: MOS, WOMOS. and AOC thrown around a lot! These are abbreviations for the Army’s three categories of soldiers: Enlisted Soldiers, Warrant Officers, and Commissioned Officers.

The Army uses a complex organizational system to categorize service men and women. Each of these categories has its own specialized training, responsiblity, and expertise.

Here’s a look into the what it all means!

Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) – Enlisted Soldiers
MOS is a specific job within the command structure of the U.S. Army. These jobs range from rigging parachutes for the quartermaster corps to Special Operations Engineer and Radio Operator – Maintainer. The Army has around 190 MOSs available for enlisted Soldiers. Enlisted soldiers get the job done. An Enlisted Soldier’s rank can range from Private to Sergeant Major of the Army.

Warrant Officer Military Occupational Specialty (WOMOS) – Warrant Officers
Warrant Officers are highly specialized experts and trainers in their career fields.They remain single-specialty Officers with career tracks that progress within their field, unlike their Commissioned Officer counterparts who focus on increased levels of command and staff duty positions. When a Warrant Officer reaches the rank of Chief Warrant Officer Two, they are commissioned by the President and have the same status as their traditional commissioned Officer counterparts. An example of a Warrant Officer is a helicopter pilot. A Warrant Officer’s rank can range from Warrant Officer 1 to Chief Warrant Officer 5.

Area of Concentration (AOC) – Commissioned Officers
Commissioned Officers are responsible for completing demanding missions while ensuring the welfare, morale, and professional development of the Soldiers entrusted to them. They are entrusted with serving as a model of the Army values as they perform their leadership duties. Officers give orders. An Officer’s rank can range from Second Lieutenant to General of the Army.

Our service men and women work together to defend our country, our freedoms, and our way of life! HOOAH!

Life’s good. It’s changed, but still good. My son’s been in Afghanistan for several weeks now. Being a proud Army Mom of a deployed soldier changed everything.

I still go about my daily life but my focus is different. Sure I go to work everyday just like before. Only now I make sure all my instant message programs are running on my work computer and my cell phone is always close at hand. I chat with my son online when I should be working. I go to the market as usual but now I throw extra items in my cart to start another care package for my son. Oh, and the frequent trips to the post office! I scour the Internet for news about what’s happening in Afghanistan each day hoping that I find nothing.

I do all the normal things I always did, like walking at the beach, exercising like crazy, hiking at night, enjoying a cup of coffee with friends, and volunteering with adorable animals. I keep busy with a home business in addition to my job. I spend time with my family that I love so much. Life is good.

But now, there is a strong undercurrent of thoughts and emotion amid the flurry of activity in my life. It’s always with me.

What lies beneath the surface are thoughts of my son and the danger he faces each and everyday. Sometimes I can handle it, sometimes I cannot. The moments that I cannot result in quiet tears. When the moment passes, I carry on – the undercurrents staying just below the surface of my life. It’s the ebb and flow of life these days.

As my son the pilot takes flight daily and sometimes into the night in Afghanistan, I pray – “Lord, as he makes his way through his days and through his nights, please let his guardian angel protect his flight.”

Staying Army Mom Strong

Helping our troops phone home is the mission of Cell Phones for Soldiers (CPFS), started by Brittany Bergquist and her brother Robbie (14 and 13 years old) back in April of 2004.

Through donations and recycling of cell phones, Brittany and Robbie use the proceeds to purchase prepaid phone card and distribute them to deployed soldiers. AT&T donated half a million dollars in phone cards and established drop off locations at each of its 2,000 stores across the country.

Since 2004, this brother and sister have provided more than 60,000,000 minutes of free calling cards thanks to a national network of individual and corporate supporters donating phones and money.

“There are more than 130 million phones retired every year in the United States,” said Robbie Bergquist, cofounder of Cell Phones for Soldiers. “If just 2% of all American’s were to donate their phones, we could supply every troop with a phone as a small measure of the gratitude of a nation.”

Here are some great ways you can help:

• Donate a Phone – Drop off your old or unused cell phone at any of AT&T’s more than 2,000 company-owned stores across the U.S. You can also mail your used phone with free shipping anywhere in the U.S. Click here to find a drop off point.
• Donate Money – Don’t have a phone to donate? Support the troops by making an online secure donation. Click here to donate money.
• Set Up a Drop-off Point – Show your support for the troops by setting up an offical drop-off point for Cell Phones for Soldiers. Click here to set up a drop-off location.
• To request a calling card for YOUR soldier – Each phone card provide an 800 number, which the user may call, and supplies the user with an hour of talk time. Request a calling card.

You can also visit the AT&T Cell Phones for Soldiers Web site.

Learn more about Cell Phones for Soldiers

Help keep Military families connected – donate a phone! Watch more of Cell Phones for Soldiers Charity and how it is helping our troops around the world!

In the event your soldier is wounded and recovering,  families can use the CaringBridge website to communicate with people by giving updates and other information.

CaringBridge is a free, nonprofit web service that connects family and friends to share information, love and support during a serious health event, care and recovery. It takes just a few moments to create a personal and private CaringBridge website.

I learned about CaringBridge through some dear friends that are keeping track of a fellow soldier. He was seriously injured, along with seven other members of his unit, when an improvised explosive device (IED) was set off in Afghanistan last year.

CaringBridge provides a way to simplify updates to family and friends through journal entries. This helps to reduce the stress of multiple conversations. Visitors to your site can leave messages of love and support in the guestbook. Our soldier friend, who is still recovering, has already received 3,000 loving and supportive messages. It really makes a difference to the person who is recovering and the family.

With CaringBridge, you can build a Web site easily and quickly. It is free and available anytime you need it.

I hope you never need to use this Web site. If you do, please let us know so we can support you through your soldier’s recovery.

About CaringBridge: CaringBridge is a charitable nonprofit organization. Their mission:
To bring together a global community of care powered by the love of family and friends in an easy, accessible and private way. Visit: CaringBridge.org

Stay Army Mom Strong. Blessings to you and your soldier.

Care packages are fun to pack and fun for our soldier’s to receive. I get lots of questions about what to put in a care package for deployed soldiers.

Here is a list of stuff that I sent to my son in Afghanistan. Some of these items were requested and others I just sent because I wanted to. Would love to hear about what you pack in your care packages too!

Afghanistan is an extremely mountainous country with rugged terrain and harsh climate. It’s especially cold right now and even colder at 8,000 feet elevation. Thus, the cold weather items!

Practical items for the cold weather:

• Cabela wool boot socks and liners: my son loved these. His feet stay super warm now. This is an extra-heavyweight stretch boot sock made of 50% Merino wool/30% wool/10% nylon/9% acrylic/1% lycra® spandex. The liners are great for maximum wicking. Shipped direct from Cabela – fast.
• Cabela’s Polar Expedition-Weight Polartec® Power Dry Crew and bottoms: wear under clothing. Very warm and effective at wicking moisture away from the skin. They were on sale!
• Flannel bed sheets: was very happy to receive these. Target has great prices.
• Warm comforter (got it half price). Shipped direct from Sears – fast. He loves this too!

Other stuff:

• Books: my son made a wish list of books on Amazon.com. Then anyone can buy a book and mark it off the list. You do not have to buy the book at Amazon to mark it as purchased.
• Snap lid plastic food containers: You cannot keep food around in B-huts living quarters due to little critters that also want the food. Air tight food containers work well.
• Shaker cup and protein powder
• Movie on DVD
• Bath towel (super deal at Costco)
• Washcloths
• SD card for the digital camera  (still waiting for him to send me the pictures!)
• Cat food: the cutest little kittens have taken up residence in a nearby  B-hut. Mom and Dad are kicking them out of the nest.
• Wartime prayer book: my parents neighbors sent this thoughtful book.
• Dunkin donuts ground coffee
• Instant coffee
• Lots of stuff from Trader Joe’s
• Granola bars, protein bars, and other healthy bars
• Individual snack bags of mixed nuts, sunflower seeds, trail mix, peanut butter crackers, almonds.
• Sunflower seeds (shelled)
• Jif To Go packs: Jiffy peanut butter in individual cups – sold in 6 packs.
• Organic applesauce individual cups
• BUMBLE BEE® Chicken Salad with Crackers: Mixed and ready to eat.
• Chunk white chicken in 7 oz. foil pouches.
• Travel size packs of tissue: these are great to fill in the gaps in the box and useful on the other end.
• Zip lock bags: put the small items in zip lock bags which are always useful for soldiers.
• Wheat crackers
• Dr. Bronners bar soap: we are fans of Dr. Bronner’s soaps. They are high quality, versatile, and eco-friendly.
• Plastic forks
• Chocolate covered expresso beans
• P90X Protein Bars
• Natural turkey and beef jerky
• Toothpaste
• Lots of cans of chunky soup
• Trader Joe chile with beef or turkey
• Shakeology superfood health shake packets
• Gum
• Lip balm
• Floss
• Baby wipes
• Roll of soft toilet paper
• Notebook paper and envelopes
• Over the door coat hooks
• 5 x7 pictures of his family with a frame
• Postcard from the beach
• Airborne effervescent
• Emergen-C

What’s in your soldier’s care package? Leave a comment!

Are you the Mom of a son or daughter who is serving, or has been honorably discharged from the Armed Forces of the United States? If so, you are probably experiencing emotions that you have not felt before. Finding the daily strength to cope with your son or daughter’s deployment can be daunting. No one really understands what you are going through except for other Military Moms!

That’s where the Blue Star Mothers of America comes in! When you join a local Blue Star Mother’s group, you can connect with other Moms of deployed and not-deployed Military that maybe experiencing the same feelings as you.

Blue Star Mothers of America has an amazing history. The organization was started in January 22, 1942 when the Flint News Advertiser printed a coupon asking Mothers of serviceman to return the coupon after filling it out.

This led to over 300 mothers meeting at a hotel in Flint Michigan the following month. With Captain George H. Maines acting as the chair for the first meeting, they decided to form a permanent organization.

Mothers volunteered their time through the tough times of World War II – packing care packages and helping out in hospitals. Over the years the organization dimished in size but after being attacked on our own soil again, proud Military Moms started hanging flags in their windows at home proclaiming pride in the fact that we have children protecting our freedom during at time of war.

Blue Star Mothers provides support for active duty service personnel, promotes patriotism, assists Veterans organizations, and are available to assist in homeland volunteer efforts to help our country remain strong.

When you need encouragement, Blue Star Moms can help you cope with military life and be there for you when you need strength to get through a tough time.

Visit the Blue Star Mothers national website to find a local chapter near you!
Visit Blue Star Mothers on Facebook.

Do YOU belong to a local Blue Star Mothers chapter? If so, we’d love to hear more from you! Leave a comment!

Combat outposts (COPs) in Afghanistan and Iraq refer to something like a patrol base to anything smaller then a Forward Operating Base (FOB). An FOB is any secured forward position that is used to support tactical operations. Troops in combat outposts are based out of larger forward operating bases.

No two COPs are alike. For example, one outpost in Afghanistan is housed in an abandoned former district agricultural building in an Afghan village. This one is comprised of a mud building that started out abandoned and cold with no electricity or water. Like most outposts in Afghanistan, conditions are stark. The troops build up the outposts, securing them before adding comforts like heat.

In contrast, another outpost sits at the edge of a plateau 7,700 feet above sea level. This outpost is surrounded by mountain ridges rising several hundred feet higher.

Troops are usually helicoptered into an outpost because the roads traveled are too dangerous or there is no other way to get there. Helicopters deliver supplies as often as possible but depending on weather conditions, choppers can’t always get there regularly.

Soldiers are usually rotated into outposts for about a month at a time, but it depends on the situation and mission.

Food is usually in the form of MREs (Meal, Ready-to-Eat). MREs are self-contained, individual field rations in lightweight packaging for use in combat or other field conditions where organized food facilities are not available.

This video below features the life of Marines on a combat outpost in Afghanistan. They have no running water and eat heated tray rations or MREs. They make do with water in a bag for a shower, and laundry is a do-it-yourself operation using a bucket. There are no amenities in this outpost as the Marines spend most of their time patrolling the area.

You can bring our troops in outposts some cheer by sending a care package via Operation Hooah! Operation Hooah! helps to get care packages to soldiers out in the isolated outposts.

HOOAH!

As the holidays wind down and we roll into the New Year, I pray that the Lord will hold each of our deployed soldiers in his hands and surround them with his Angels of protection.

2009 was a great year for me. I have much to be thankful for, most of all family and friends. I am also blessed to have met so many wonderful Military families that support each other through it all.

With all the goodness that has come my way, my heart remains heavy with the burden of knowing that my son and all our deployed troops are in harm’s way.

Life goes on, so they say. And it does, except for those moments when I am alone and this sadness overwhelms me and the tears start. Or when a friend asks me if I heard from my son and I can hardly speak.

At times like this, I remember to “look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look there.”

So here we are, another New Year’s Eve. While people are out partying and having a wild time, I am simply thinking that my son is one day closer to coming home.

Have a happy and healthy 2010.  HOOAH!