Every six weeks, we ship goodie bags to our injured troops at a Combat Support Hospital in Iraq.  The cloth goodie bags are sewn by volunteers and the paper goodie bags are decorated by schoolchildren.  We pack them full of all kinds of goodies (i.e., cookies, nuts, trail mix, candy, gum, etc.)  Below is an e-mail we received from a patient that received one of our goodie bags:  

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I would like to start by saying THANK YOU so much for the bag of goodies.  I have a funny story about the bag that your wonderful organization put together for me.  

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I became suddenly very ill a week ago.  I was admitted into one of the tiny hospitals in the middle of Iraq.  The doctor’s told me I had a severe infection in my abdomen and would be unable to eat or drink anything by mouth (NPO) for 3 days.  They had me hooked up to all kinds of IV’s.  

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Well, on the first day a lady came through the hospital and handed me one of your bags.  It had an American Flag drawn by crayon on the outside.  As you know, the bag was filled with tons of goodies.  

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I was so hungry at 3:00am in the morning I couldn’t take it anymore and I just ripped the bag open and started eating several of the snacks.  

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I guess this is a big NO NO in a war zone.  The nurse caught me in the middle of a joyous meal.  The look on the nurse’s face was priceless.  She yelled at me and told me I was not to eat anything.  

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The next day the doctor came in to yell at me for breaking his orders.  Instead of yelling at me he discharged me because I was able to hold food down and thought it was great the bag was there for me to chow on.  

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