I wrote last month about how the Iraqi children come running and waving whenever we drive through villages, and how sometimes our troops have candy and stuff to throw to them. Since I have most of what I need to get by here, I told people wanting to send me stuff that they could send me stuff to give to the kids. My mom and a friend of my other mom's from Stow both sent me some big care packages last week with a bunch of stuff for kids, including bulk hard candy, crayons (which, amazingly, survived without melting or getting broken), pens, loose leaf filler paper, hair barretts, and kid sunglasses. I spent an hour or so last Saturday filling up 25 large ziploc bags with a assorted items from what was sent, and boxed them up for the next time I went out and wasn't leading the convoy. Here's what the box looked like:

So, I went out Monday in a humvee with no roof over the backseat and as we drove by, I'd throw the bags to any kids that were out who were like 3-6 years old (older kids can fend for themselves, I figure). The bags worked really well and it was easy to toss them out from the backseat of the hummer (while going 50mph down the road -- we weren't slowing down for this). Anyway, the kids naturally went running for them and although I'll probably never see any of them wearing the sunglasses or drawing pictures with the crayons and paper, I'm hoping they'll be able to do so and are a bit happier because of it. It made me feel good to give them something; I'm looking forward to coming home to see my daughter again...