Tips

Below is a list of tips that should help with any questions you may have.

• How do you identify a Unit to "adopt" to send T-shirts? Ask around your department, your families and, your community to identify a soldier and their unit. A soldier that has some connection to your Department or community is perfect. You may also check the State FMBA web site for a list of Fellow FBMA members currently serving.
• How many soldiers are in a Unit and how many T-shirts do I send? Once you have identified the Unit your soldier belong to, take some time to find the Unit's logo and also see how many soldiers are assigned to that Unit. For example, the 705th Explosive Ordnance Disposal Company, 1st Combat Support Brigade out of Ft. Polk recently deployed to Iraq. That Unit consist of 23 soldiers. If you sent them 200 T-shirts they would be very appreciative but also a bit overwhelmed. So, a suggestion, take one step back from a soldier's individual Unit. Find out who they are attached to, i.e. which Task Force. The 1st Cavalry T-shirts we send from the FBMA convention have tens of thousand of Troops deployed in Iraq. The 1st Cavalry is made up of many smaller Units so we could never send "to many" shirts! One dozen shirt or one hundred shirts---it doesn't matter, the soldiers will be appreciative.
  
• How do I know when a Unit of soldiers in heading home? Check the web site of the Unit your soldier is from. It will have the deployment date. Most Units are deployed from 8 months to a year. T-Shirts for Troops take about 2 months to run from inception to mailing so be sure the soldiers are scheduled to still be in Iraq. If not, the T-shirts, addressed to the Chaplain, will be forwarded to the Troops once they are home. Still a nice surprise for them.
  
• How do you locate the Chaplain of the Unit you would like to send T-shirts to? This is a easy one! Send me the APO address of the soldier in the unit you are "adopting" and I will get you the email address of the Chaplain in Iraq. You can also do a "google" search on the home base the Unit was deployed from. You will find a telephone number for the Chaplain's office. Call that number. Chaplains are so in tune with their Troops, they will bend over backwards to help get you the information you need.

• Shipping the T-Shirts Take at look at this site for information on sending packages to the Troops in Iraq. It explains what an APO mailing address is and how a package arrives. You will to complete a Customs Declaration Form, available in the Post Office, for each box.