05 Oct 2005:
I would like to thank you all for all of your wonderful support while we have been deployed. My unit will be transitioning out of Iraq within the next few weeks. I can not even begin to express how much pride and joy that your generosity, support, kindness, and love have brought to all of the soldiers here. Our unit has accomplished many feats since we arrived last December. The greatest one, in my eyes, was establishing the first donor center in a combat theatre. With your support this was a huge success. We were able to get DVD players, a very large DVD library, donor incentives, and lots of treats for the donors and my soldiers.

I will be returning home to my wonderful wife and children. As much as I will miss all of the soldiers and friends I have made over here, I will certainly not miss this place. God bless you all,

Jeff

07 Sep 2005
To the wonderful community supporting all of the soldiers stationed overseas,

Thank you very much for all of your support over the last few months. I am a New Orleans native and have been in awe over the last 10 days. My emotions and feelings have been all over the place as I watched my home town destroyed. It is hard to explain the feelings I have for what is going on there. I saw a video this morning of Harry Connick Jr. riding in a boat less than a mile from where I grew up. I was stunned at the absolute devastation of everything of both New Orleans and the entire Gulf Coast.

I would like to make this brief and ask everyone to do three things for me. First, do not look on the criminal element looting the city as a snapshot of the population that lived there. As in every major metropolitan area 99.99% of the population consists of good people and the news decided to focus on the worst of our city in those initial reports. Please look on the good people who were traveling in their personal boats going from home to home saving families.

Second, we do not need anything sent to us here in the future. Please send anything you have for us to the families that have been displaced. We need to come together as a community on this one. We do not need to look at the government for help or point fingers when it does not come fast enough. The government will help but we do not need to place blame when they do not do it to the standards we think they should be working at. We as a community need to outreach to these victims. They are all over the USA now and will end up settling somewhere other than New Orleans.

If this happened over 200 years ago or even 50 years ago, what would we have done? We would have opened up our doors to them and relied on the good nature of man to take care of our brothers and sisters who are victims. Thousands and thousands of families are displaced. These are business owners, teachers, blue collar workers, white collar workers, mothers, fathers, and children. No one was spared from the devastation. I consider myself very fortunate to not have lost any family members. I have a huge extended family living all along the Gulf Coast and in the New Orleans area. It is amazing that only a few have been displaced. But we can start over. We will come together as a family and help our own. But there are many out there who do not have a huge family and may not have the support structure in place to do what we have to do.

This is where I am placing my third request. Please help our fellow citizens. Somewhere along the way we decided to take the Ten Commandments out of our classrooms and court houses. They need to be in our hearts and our actions during this time of need for our nation. I know the people who read this web site are the ones who are the first to volunteer and donate in times of need. Please do so. Many of these victims need more than just money. They need prayers, hugs, and encouragement to get back up and start over.

Thanks for you time and everything you have sent us in the past. But I can happily finish this deployment without another care package for my soldiers because I know you are helping our civilian brothers and sisters on the home front who are suffering from a fate worse than anything we are facing over here. I will be returning home to my wife and family. Our fellow citizens have no home to go to. Again, thanks for everything you have done for us in the past and thanks for helping out my home town back there in the USA.

CPT Jeff Smith

03 Sep 2005
(From a friend of Captain Smith):

Dear Friends,
This is from our friend, Cpt. Jeff Smith, who is in Iraq at the 86th Combat Support Hospital. He grew up in New Orleans, and his wife and kids are in Lower Alabama. As you can read, many of his family lost EVERYTHING, but all of them are still alive, Thank God!

Please pray for Jeff and his family. It must be so hard to be so far away when your life at home as you knew it is gone...: (

Fer

2 Sept 2005
Thanks for thinking of me over here. My immediate family is safe in Alabama. Fort Rucker is directly above Panama City, Florida, about 30 minutes above the FL/AL border.  We lost power and a lot of trees fell down last year during hurricane Ivan.  Katrina was not as bad on our house this year. I told Christie to stay put at the house.  She has not been able to call home but everyone can call her.  So she emails them to tell them to call her.

My father, brother, and sister live in baton Rouge.  They are fine. Thousands and thousands of refugees are swarming into Baton Rouge.  There are no longer any houses or apartments for rent and they are rationing gas throughout Baton Rouge. Christie’s family still lives in and around the New Orleans area.  A few of my in-laws including her little sister lost their homes, cars, and businesses.  Her sister is a single mother, school teacher, and she left her car at her apartment when she evacuated with a friend. Thus, she lost everything and there are no longer schools there.  I told Christie to tell her to move in with us in Alabama. Who knows what she will decide.  She may want to stay in the area.

Other members of her family just lost power and are still out of power but they are doing alright compared to the total destruction going on down there.  A few of my other in-laws lost everything but they got out of the city before Katrina hit.  They are some of the many in Baton Rouge renting houses. 

Who knows what they will do with the city.  The house I grew up in is under water. My feelings have been all over the place all week.  Initially I felt very similar to the way I did after September 11^th.  Now I am frustrated at a lot of things, to include not being able to be there to help out and all of the criminals roaming the city looting and shooting people. 

Thanks for thinking of me and keeping me in your prayers.  

31 Aug 2005
Hello to all of our great supporters,

It has been a few weeks since my last update and I apologize. It has been up and down around here and we have been catching up on some much needed rest the last few days when it slowed down. We have gotten in some outstanding packages from all of you and it all goes fast. Just a few updates, we now have a bread maker in the lab so the bread factory has started again. I am cooking some now and it smells great. Feel free to start sending bread mixes again. We now have a donor center in the states who are going to be sending us donor shirts as needed, so we no longer need shirts sent to us as incentives. We also have now stocked lots of Rice Krispie Treat supplies, at least enough for the next month. Thanks to all of you who are looking out for our reliance on fresh sweets. Again, these things go very quickly around here.

The one thing we do need more than anything is laundry detergent. A number of soldiers have asked me if we have gotten any lately. I know everyone wants to send toiletries and Freezie Pops, which are all great, but we need detergent for our beyond filthy DCUs. We have a laundry trailer outside of the hospital where we can do self service laundry but they do not supply detergent. Thanks in advance.

Here is a photo of my roommate donating whole blood for a patient a few days ago. We had to collect in the hallway that day because we were also collecting in our donor ISO and it was full.

Football season begins this weekend. There are a lot of guys here who are huge fans, including myself. I tried playing some of those Xbox football games with my buddies, they beat me miserably. I only won once out of a countless number of attempts. I never played Xbox prior to arriving here and never had any interest in it. I have learned it is a great way to relax in the evening with the guys when I am so far away from home. There are a lot of soldiers who play video games, especially the younger ones. These are the ones who seem to beat me in almost everything. I am sure they have been playing for years. I have become good at Halo 2 and that is the main game these guys play in the evenings. A lot has changed since Donkey Kong and Pac Man. Now I know why these guys like these games so much.

I got a few small beautiful porcelain dolls in a package a few days ago. I have them sitting at my desk waiting to give them to little girls who come into the hospital for care. So far I have given away two. The faces on these children when they see these dolls is hard to describe. By the look of their clothes and knowing the state of their neighborhoods, I am sure they do not own anything this nice. Because these children are patients I am not allowed to include photos, no pictures of patients.

Thanks again for all you have done for us, it means more than you can ever imagine.

Jeff

02 Aug 2005

To the wonderful supporters of the 86th Combat Support Hospital,

Thanks for everything you are doing for us here. We have been extremely busy the last few weeks. Hospitals do not have slow days in a combat zone, especially the one here in Baghdad. If you see it happening on the news and it mentions Baghdad, then I am certain most of the critical patients are brought to us. Many times when we get a large influx of patients from a bombing we go to the internet to find out what happened. The internet news sites leave out a lot of the details which we get from our patients.

I have gotten a few packages over the last two weeks and have not had a chance to write any thank you notes. I decided to take a few minutes this afternoon and try and thank everyone who has been supporting us here. July was our busiest month as far as blood usage goes. We have used more blood in seven months than the previous hospital did in an entire year. It is amazing how the war has escalated on the ground here with civilian casualties and wounded over the last few months. We have been drawing blood and platelets continuously with very few hours off during the day for my techs to take a rest.

Two weeks ago we had a huge power outage/surge in the hospital and our bread maker and coffee pot got fried. There are plenty of coffee pots around here and I got another one for the lab, but I no longer have a bread maker. So, please do not send any more bread mixes since we have nothing to cook them in. We would love a replacement bread maker if anyone wants to send one, but I understand how expensive they are and do not expect a replacement.

We do, however, still have a microwave. My current request is for Marshmallows and Rice Crispies. These go faster than you think. The soldiers all pull out a spoon and dig right into the bowl before they ever enter the fridge.

We still always need donor incentives for our donor center. I originally started requesting items for my donor center to give to the soldiers who donate platelets. We have built a nice little DVD library so far and the soldiers use them both when they donate and when they are off. Are latest Battalion of soldiers who just arrived have been taking all of our t-shirts. We did not have many to start with and they are going fast. They do not care what they say they just want something civilian to wear. Snacks are still appreciated but we do not need anymore toiletries. The chaplain has as much as he can store. A lot of the toiletries have gone to the Return to Duty section of the hospital. This is the section that houses soldiers who have been treated at the hospital and are awaiting transportation back to their base. They do not come here with much. They also enjoy our donor center and have had hours of enjoyment on the Xbox we have there. More Xbox games would be nice as well if anyone has some old ones lying around which their children no longer play. We do have Halo 2 which is the one that has gotten the most usage.   A special thanks to the young man who donated that system to us, it is well utilized everyday.

One of our great supporters has been a wonderful bakery called Anna’s of San Francisco. They have been steadily sending us cookies every week. These have been shared with every department in the hospital as well as the MP unit who guard the halls of the hospital. I mention this because I am enclosing a picture of my soldiers about to enjoy some of their wonderful cookies. As you can see one of these guys can not wait for the picture to be taken before he dives right into the cookies. It is the little things in life which brings joy to these guys.

So, thanks to everyone out there for doing your part in supporting us over here. Please go donate blood at your local military installation or local donor center because we get most of our blood and plasma from the states. You guys are great.

15 Jul 2005
To the wonderful supporters of the 86th Combat Support Hospital,

Some days here are extremely slow while others are over so fast; it all depends on the traumas being evacuated to our hospital. Since everyday is like any other day around here, there are no weekend breaks; we count down everyday as a day closer to getting home. Today is the 15th which means we are halfway through the month.

We went on another humanitarian mission last Thursday. It was great to bring joy to these children and their parents by bringing them school supplies, candy, toys, clothes, and stuffed animals. My roommate played soccer with some of them while he was wearing his body armor and Kevlar. I do not know how in the world he was able to do that in this heat. The children had a good time.

Here is a picture me and of one of the children, his glasses are being held on by string.

Unfortunately, after what happened a few days ago with the car bomber blowing himself up near soldiers passing out candy to children, we will not be conducting any humanitarian missions in the near future. So, you are more than welcome to continue to send items for children but we will only hand them out to patients for now.

Here is a web link to the home page for the Army’s Medical Service Corps. The deputy commander of the hospital nominated me for the junior officer of the week for the Corps and I was selected for my actions and everything I have done while over here. I hope you all enjoy it: CLICK HERE . Of course most of the credit goes to my soldiers for doing such a great job under my leadership. These are the guys you all are supporting over here. Thanks again for all of your continued support and prayers.

CPT Jeff Smith

04 Jul 2005
To the wonderful supporters of the 86th Combat Support Hospital,

Thank you so much for everything you have done for us lately. I have been meaning to update our progress for the last few weeks, but as you know we have been very busy here in the busiest Combat Support Hospital in Iraq. With the amount of blood we go through I think we probably rank up there as one of the busiest trauma centers in the world. June was our busiest month since arriving here in December. I have records dating back to January 2004, and June was the biggest blood usage month.

The enclosed photos are of a whole blood drive we had to conduct to help save a soldier who was evacuated here. It is amazing how many of these soldiers show up to do whatever they can as they stand vigil while their buddy is in surgery. Our largest blood drive thus far was conducted on Father’s Day to save the life of a young father. As much as I hate to be over here away from my family on days like that, I am grateful I was here to be a vital part in the effort to save a fellow American’s life. This has been truly a moving experience for me and my soldiers and I will certainly come home a changed man when all is said and done.

On another note, happy 4th of July to everyone and I hope you all have a wonderful time BBQing. We are going to be watching Independence Day tonight in our library/conference room. Thanks for all of the great care packages and supplies for my donor center and soldiers working in the hospital and laboratory, everything is well used and much appreciated. As far as things we need, it is still the same as previous updates but we do not need any more toiletries. Thanks again for all of your support and prayers, we use them all.

CPT Jeff Smith

10 Jun 2005

Hello to all of the great supporters of the 86th Combat Support Hospital,

We are now hitting our half way mark on our deployment. It is all down hill from here, hopefully. I can not tell you how much all of us here appreciate the support we are getting from everyone. It is now in the high 110s here and getting hotter as the summer nears. We have gotten in quite a few boxes with Freezie Pops/ Otter Pops in the mail and they are absolutely wonderful. I bring a few out to the gate guards every afternoon and they love them. These guys are in their full body armor and wearing a Kevlar in this horrible heat. The frozen pops are great for them.

I had the opportunity to re-enlist one of my sergeants, SGT Baez, yesterday morning on the roof of our hospital in Baghdad. Basically a soldier can be re-enlisted by any officer of his choosing, so to be chosen is quite an honor and privilege. I am very proud of this young man who has chosen to stay in the military and extend his time in service while serving in Iraq. It says a lot about the leadership and the importance of what we are doing here. Thanks to all of you for your continued support and I hope you enjoy the photos of the promotion.

CPT Jeff Smith

26 May 2005
Things have been very busy here in Baghdad the last few weeks. All of the response from the United States has been spectacular the last few months. We have stocked our donor center with lots of pillows and coffee mugs. The DVD library is building nicely as well and we now have an extra DVD player in the donor center as well as an X-Box. The X-box will be moved to the hospital’s recreation room soon. We could still use any extra X-box games or DVDs anyone wants to send. We have Halo 2 and the soldiers love playing it.

I polled a large number of the soldiers here in the hospital to see what they would like to be sent in care packages now that we are 5 months into our deployment. My favorite response was, “A ticket out of this place!” Of the donors who have gotten almost one of everything, they said they would like to get various sports equipment if possible. Such as a football to toss around, more basketballs (we have two that are worn out, they get continuous play), softball gloves and a bat (there are a few guys here with gloves and a ball but not a lot). Other requested items were thumb drives, headphones with volume control, and an eyebrow shaper (never heard of it, but that is what a female soldier came out with).

Now that we are getting packages in, the soldiers are now asking for certain items. Care package type items most highly requested, in no particular order, are Pop Tarts, pudding snacks, corn chips or Doritos, Brownie mix, bean dip, Flaming Hot Cheetos, Philippine dried Mangos, Wassabe Peas, fried plantain chips, Chex mix, Easy Mac, hot sauce, ketchup, Fritos, microwavable food, Double Stuffed Oreo’s, and hard candy that will not melt. I have never heard of a few of these, but than we have soldiers from all over the country as well as three continents. Lots of cross culture here. Items other than food requested were laundry soap and tobacco products. I am not a smoker, but it seems like half of the Army smokes, dips, or smokes cigars. My NCOIC and section NCOs are taking smoking breaks all day long. I take nap breaks myself. Of course we are always in need of bread mix and coffee. Bread mix is the number one on the list because we make fresh bread daily and it goes fast.

I would like to recognize all of the wonderful families from throughout the USA who have sent so much for all of the soldiers here as well as donations for our humanitarian missions including a small town called Pacifica, CA. With such a huge country and thousands of cities, I have had the opportunity to meet two fascinating families from this small town who have shown so much support for us here. I do not want to leave anyone else out, such as those representing the SEC from Arkansas and Louisiana. Two families in New Jersey have supported us as well as a family from Killeen, Texas; letters and packages from Oregon and North Carolina; and our huge pillow and mug supplier from Rancho Palos Verdes, CA. Thanks to them and everyone who supports us and all of the soldiers deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I will send some pictures soon,

CPT Jeff Smith

23 Apr 2005

Here are some a few more great photos of us at work. The first is of me unloading blood being delivered. This is how we get our blood if my soldiers are not collecting it in our donor center. The other is of my soldiers and me wearing our National Laboratory Week T-Shirts. Thanks to everyone who is helping us over here. The MP soldiers located at a nearby Forward Operating Base are some of our biggest donors. They love everything we have gotten and greatly appreciate it all. They are not donating for incentives but they take them none the less and express their thanks to everyone in the states for their continued support. I have gotten a few post cards, thank you cards, and pictures from supporters. We have started a Wall of Fame to put them on and show everyone who supports us. I will send a picture of that soon. Thanks again for everything,

CPT Jeff Smith

Everything is going good here in Baghdad. Our donor center made the Stars & Stripes yesterday http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=28590. We are getting a lot of exposure since we are now supplying the entire country with platelets. Our hospital uses about 90% of what we collect and we send the rest to other hospitals throughout Iraq. I have been contacted concerning a DVD player and I was told one is in route.

Last week our chaplain sponsored a humanitarian trip to a local housing area and school. The hospital has since decided to adopt the school and provide needed school supplies and toys for the children. Here are a few pictures from our trip. That is me giving a Winnie the Pooh doll to a little girl. It is amazing to see their reactions when they realize everything we have for them. It is like Christmas morning. They have so little over here.

Thanks for everything. You are doing a lot for all of the soldiers over here and the support we get from everyone in the states is truly amazing. God bless,

Jeff

12 Apr 2005
Thanks a lot for your web page and your help. I have had the opportunity to meet a lot of great Americans through emails and letters. I am very impressed by their caring and generosity to help us over here in Baghdad. I requested items for my donor center and have gotten half a dozen packages so far to help with my DVD library for the donor center as well as snacks for the donors and soldiers.

We could still use a portable DVD player for our donors to watch DVDs on. I know these are expensive and I am not really expecting to get one, but you wanted to know how we were doing and what we still needed. One thing I did not mention was coffee. We could use some good coffee for our coffee maker as well as bread mix. Thanks for your continued help. Here are some pictures of our donor center and one of me and my roommates. That is one of my soldiers sitting on the donor bed in the ISO. Thanks again for everything,

Jeff

19 Mar 2005
I am the laboratory and blood bank officer at the most active combat support hospital in theater. As you can imagine we go through almost double the amount of blood in our hospital as all of the others in Iraq combined. We also surpass every military treatment facility in the US. Most of the blood we use, but not all, is shipped to us from the US. On a daily basis we are collecting blood and platelets in our recently established donor center to help augment the blood we receive from the US. All of our donors are combat soldiers donating for their buddies and friends in the OR. I am requesting items I can give to the soldiers after they finish donating blood and DVDs they can watch while they donate platelets. Items to give to the soldiers after donating blood include CDs, T-Shirts, DVDs, small pillows, or large coffee mugs with lids; basically something they can use.

We have established the first and only platelet aphaeresis collection procedure in a combat theater. The process takes between 90 and 120 minutes and the donor lays on a bed while they donate. We have one hand held DVD player and two beds. I would like to have DVDs they can watch during the procedure and an additional DVD player for the other donor bed.

I have some of the best techs in the world working for me. Many of them are single guys that play XBox non-stop while not working in the lab or collecting blood. They live in hard buildings and would love to have any additional XBox games available. They enjoy multiplayer games that they can play against each other, mutiplayer games: racing, shooting, sports, and adventure.

Thank you in advance for your help and support. I would be more than happy to send digital photos of the soldiers your contributions are helping.