[CVRC] RE: A Holiday Idea -- RETRACTED

[Dick Flanagan K7VC]

I recently sent out a message encouraging folks to send a holiday 
card to Walter Reed Army Medical Center addressed to "A Recovering 
American Soldier."  Unfortunately, this is one of those good ideas 
that turns out not to be practical.

I checked with the SNOPES rumor directory 
http://www.snopes.com/politics/christmas/soldiercards.asp or 
http://tinyurl.com/2ktoom and found that neither the Post Office nor 
Walter Reed will accept any mail that is not addressed to a specific 
individual for security reasons.

The SNOPES article did give some references to other sites that might 
be able to help, including:

The USO at http://www.usocares.org/.  They don't accept cards or 
gifts for delivery to the troops, but for $25 will send a "care 
package" filled with products the troops have asked for.

The Red Cross at http://www.redcross.org/.  They do hand out gifts to 
troops at Walter Reed, but I was unable to find information on their 
web site as to how an individual can send specific gifts this way.

The Army provides a free on-line Blog for messages of support for 
members of the military at http://www4.army.mil/ocpa/tooursoldiers/ 
or http://tinyurl.com/yey8yb .

Unfortunately, however, I have not been able to find a way to simply 
mail individual holiday messages to anonymous members of the 
military.  I apologize for the false information I sent out earlier.

73, Dick
--
Dick Flanagan K7VC NV SM
k7vc at arrl.org