military charter to Guantanomo Bay

I flew my first military charter for Delta last week to Guantanamo Bay, better known as Gitmo. Those charters are hard to come by and even though it was a short flight, it was still wonderful to do. Not knowing what to expect and thinking we would have a plane load of soldiers, I was pleasantly surprised that the majority of our passengers were families stationed at the Naval Air Base. It was amazing to hear that almost 1500 families live at the base that includes a school, movie theatre, Subway sandwich shop, swimming pool and of course, the gorgeous beaches of Cuba. The families that I spoke with really love it there and many are on repeat tours...one family even had a college aged daughter who was taking her college courses online instead of going away to some campus. Of course, she loved it, think of all the men there! Our crew was only there for a few short hours but the Captain knew the airport staff and was given a van to give us a short tour of the base. He took us to the Mini-Mart where we could purchase the obligatory souveniers of T-shirts, ball caps and magnets. Funny how no shot glasses were available.
This was one of the shortest trips that I have done recently but ranks at the top in terms of experience....priceless!

More messages from our soldiers overseas

Here are some recent messages sent to Airborne Angel Cadets by some overseas troops who received our latest care packages:

"I must say the boxes are such a hit over (here)! I was approached by one of the units that received the last bunch of boxes, and they are in the process of adopting schools and wanted to know if we could get school supplies, simple items such as pencils, crayons, notebooks and chalk. Anyway, thank you all and for all that you do."
Kevin

"Thank you once again for the service that you and everyone that work on the boxes due for us. We serve and stay motivated because of the great Americans we have at home supporting us. Thank you so very much. everything that you are sending will be such a great help to our mission. Thank you in advance."
Mike

"Your support with gifts, candy, phone cards, toiletries, games, cards, books, magazines and the rest of the goodies along with your time and love put into it have made this deployment so much more bearable and has greatly increased morale in all the places you've been sending out these things to. I hope I'm able to finally get some good pictures for you that will show you how much all of this is appreciated here!"
Sgt Jerry

"You all are really toooo much.. I's really sorry we do not have ANYTHING here ... but I do want you to know that you all are AWESOME !!....I am soo appreciative for ALL you do and everyone else here is as well ... thanks again, A BUNCH !!!"
Jason

Kroger fundraiser for the troops

We had a very successful day last Saturday as we set up outside a local Kroger's supermarket to collect donations for the troops. Our heartfelt thanks to Kroger for allowing us this opportunity. We collected 26 boxes of donated goods (baby wipes, canned goods, etc.), and also received over $1,600 in financial donations.

We shipped about 270 care package boxes in the last couple of weeks to our troops overseas. As those mailing costs were about $4,000, and our funds are at a low level, the donations were very much appreciated. Here's some photos of some of the hard working Airborne Angel Cadet helpers at Kroger.