Dear American Soldier,

Good evening.

I've been sitting Alpha Alert for the past two days. That's when you get a "day off" but you still have to go in at 7am and do a preflight or two and then you can't do anything but sit in your room because you may have to take off within an hour. Some people absolutely hate it. I like to pretend it's a spa day. But the spa is in like a hurricane flood zone and you may have to be evacuated at any moment; that's why the spa is so cheap and not very popular.

When we went in to the squadron to grab the classified stuff to go do our daily preflight today we found that we had a new care package sent to us. Strangers, schools, retirement communities, churches, all the typical people who like to feel like they're helping, send us care packages. I love getting them and going through them... But... Some of them are pretty abysmal. It makes you think, "What the fuck do they think we're doing out here!?"

Examples:
- A couple of mini hotel shampoo bottles from La Quinta. ("They couldn't have sent a couple of mini whisky bottles from Delta?" - Traver)
- Two golf balls, dirty, clearly used. As if we're in the middle of the desert with nothing but a shovel and two sticks, and all that's preventing us from golfing are the balls. ("Why would they send this? We can just get those at the golf course off-base." - me)
- A copy of the Military Times, dated December 6th. The same magazine with free copies littered all over base.
- Granola bars. Hundreds of thousands of granola bars. All crushed and stale, because they were flown here over two weeks on 3 different C-17's and then went through Qatari customs.

"One of these days, we're gonna get a big bottle of scotch and a box of cigars," Traver said.

"Has that ever happened in your 12 years of deploying?"

"...no... so it's bound to happen soon."

The sentiment is sweet. We'd definitely rather get them than not. And if anything, it gives us a laugh at the perception of our conditions by strangers back home. And every now and then, you find a score. Homemade chocolate peanut buttercups that didn't get crushed. A snow-globe with your plane inside. There are so many little random things that people send that are clearly very thoughtful, Christmas lights are the perfect example. Or a deck of cards, where each card is a picture of a famous lighthouse in America. These are usually kept in the squadron, or shared among the community in our dorm living rooms. Postcards from random people's towns across the US is one I appreciate as well. Even if it's some Bumfuk place in Virginia with a picture of the only church in town, it's still nice because whoever sent it must be very proud of it and wanted us to see it.

However for me, the letters are the best find. As in - real letters. That may not be surprising, given my personality and what I appreciate most, but I'm not the only one who digs through boxes looking for that one letter that somebody put time into rather than just signing their name and church on a Christmas card.

We get a lot of drawings and handwritten notes from kids. You can never go wrong sending one of those. The more hilarious and misguided the better. A crayon drawing of a stick figure holding a knife, and another stick figure wearing a turban bleeding out next to him grasping his stomach, with the words in adorable all-capital child letters "DEAR SOLDIER. I HOPE YOU SHOOT LOTS OF TERRORISTS. I LOVE YOU - RACHEL", that stuff gets tacked to the bulletin board. "Fuck yeah Rachel. All in a days work." She'll probably grow up and run on the Republican ticket in 2044.

Other's clearly know we're pilots. I don't know how the logistics work of which care packages and letters get sent to which squadrons, but it would appear a small handful of them are specifically written to us... kinda. They're usually drawings of planes either dropping bombs or on fire, not sure which one is supposed to be us. Children are very violent.

Even still, the best find is a thoughtful letter from an adult. They're rare, but occasionally there's a typed out, one or two page letter from someone tucked into the tightly packed stacks of envelopes. Most of us who scavenge for them through the boxes of tootsie-rolls and baby wipes are extremely likely to write back, and maybe send a picture in response; a trade of sorts, of the little things valuable to both parties, strangers on the opposite side of the globe.

Today I finally found one. Pam, from Truth or Consequences New Mexico (the town that's named after an NBC show and not the other way around). She's a first grade teacher at the Manzano Christian School (good news, her class is praying for us), and she wrote a page long letter all about the kids' holiday festivities, and that they got a bunch of snow which is a rare occurrence in TorC (that's how people from Truth or Consequences say Truth or Consequences). Anyway, it became my goal today to write her back and send a picture of me and the crew in the cockpit.

But instead of making it easy and leaving a return address or email, she just left the name of the school and the words "1 Timothy 4:12". So I spent a while trying to find her on Facebook and on the school's website and finally just sent them an info request explaining I'm deployed and got a letter and we have Wi-Fi so it'd really make my life easier if I could just email her back instead of going the whole piece of paper on a C-17 route.

I've learned if you're going to send something to the troops, there's a pretty good chance it's not going to Delta Force in a foxhole somewhere, and there is already an abundance of tootsie rolls and baby wipes. One well-thought-out trinket, or one decently substantial letter, is equal to thousands and thousands of granola bars.

That being said, anything's better than nothing. Maybe if my flight cancels tomorrow I'll go out with my shovel, a stick, and my two newly found golf balls and play a few holes.