Candy Caper...

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Some things just don’t turn out how they were intended. Well I suppose it all turned out well for us soldiers! It really started out quite innocently a few days ago. The sergeant in charge of the mail called and said, “Ma’am, you’ve got like 15 big heavy boxes here you need to pick up!” She was just about as excited as I was. So I ran over (okay, I walked quickly) and checked out my lucky delivery.

The boxes were all lined up nice and neat along the counter and I was so excited to see so many at one time. The customs address label read “CANDY”, and as I looked at all the boxes, I realized that each and every one of them was filled with candy. Over 200 pounds of candy! Oh my goodness, it was unbelievable. So many boxes, it was like an early Christmas! Each one was so heavy I knew that I could only carry two boxes at a time. So I grabbed the first two boxes and lugged them all the way back to my room, and my roommate got all excited and offered to come help me carry some more. So back to the mail room we went. But this time we decided it would be much closer to take them to the office and store them there. My mind was racing thinking about all the little kids out in the communities that would be getting suckers and bubble gum.

So the next load of boxes were picked up and off on our little jaunt we went. Soldiers would look at us and happily ask what was in the box, and we would reply, “CANDY and lots of it!” They would grin and make that sorry looking face like…Sure wish it was me getting a box… Well that’s when my entire thought process changed. I started to give the boxes of candy to soldiers, trying to ensure that as many offices received a box. Boy were the soldiers smiling! They were excited to have just a little taste of home and one heck of a variety of little pieces of candy. Did I mention…there was over 200 pounds of candy?

What I didn’t mention was that this candy was sent from a Dental Group in Minot, North Dakota. Yes, a Dental Group! Needless to say we all chuckled and let our imagination run wild about why a Dental Group would send soldiers candy. Ironic we thought. Doesn’t everybody know that all soldiers joke about Military Dentists? We all know that if you have bad teeth at your mobilization station before deployment that the military would rather pull your teeth out before fixing them. So here these dental professionals were setting us up for bad teeth in a foreign country and who knows what would happen here if we ate too much candy. Laughing is good, but the reality was…These boxes made soldiers happy on that day and that’s what it’s all about.

So with all the candy gone except for the two boxes in my room, I set out to thank the kind givers of these treats. I sent a thank you email to Minot North Dakota and tried to explain our gratitude for the candy and all the nice pictures from kids that were tucked inside the flaps of those marvelous boxes. I was looking for the names of the children so we could write them individually and they could receive mail from Kosovo. But what I received in a return email was such a special treat that I must share the story.

The Dentist wrote,”I understand you have received your shipment of Halloween candy from our office program. We annually hold a "Treats for the Troops" candy buy back at our dental office. Kids from around the Minot area are invited to "sell" their candy to us for $1.00 per pound. We pay the kids, give them a few prizes and gifts, and send the treats to local soldiers who are stationed "overseas". We hope you and your fellow soldiers have a little fun thinking about your Halloween experiences "back home". The kids are encouraged to send along the notes and artwork. It is fun for us to see the kids lugging in their bags of recently collected candy and placing them on the scale to see how much they get. Please feel free to use the candy how you see fit. Many of the soldiers in the past have used the candy while interacting with the locals on your deployment.”

It was after that last sentence that me and my friends who I was reading the letter out loud to turn suddenly towards each other and gasped, “Oh no, we ate all the candy!” It was for the kids in the community and here we had stuffed our faces until we had chocolate dripping off our chins. We got excited when we found Reece’s peanut butter cups, ecstatic with the tiny smartie nuggets and down right beside ourselves when someone discovered the tiny fireball jaw breakers! Heck, we haven’t been here long enough to have kids out in the communities and now when we go out in the next month we have no one to thank but ourselves for not having a pocket full of candy. Dang it anyway.

The rest of the letter read, ”Thank you for the sacrifice you and your fellow soldiers are making on behalf of those of us back in North Dakota. As you can see, you are not forgotten by the folks around here. We hope we have given you a little reminder of home. Please be safe, and return home soon.”

So my promise to the Dental Group from Minot North Dakota will be to go out to the community and deliver those finally two boxes to the intended recipients. But let it not go unnoticed…The Dental Group made hundreds of soldiers really happy and we will not forget the sacrifice that all those children who participated in the annual “Treats for Troops” candy program. What an unselfish act all those kids made for us.

Thank you to everyone who sends us such wonderful care packages. You cannot imagine the joy us adults have when we open boxes from back home. It sincerely “MAKES OUR DAY!”

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