Hitting the blogs currently, and putting Soldiers' Angels into a fury, is this exchange between a Soldier and a U.S. company, Discount-Mats.com:


To Whom it may concern:

Do you ship to APO addresses?
I'm in the 1st Cavalry Division stationed in Iraq and we are trying to order some mats but we are looking for who ships to APO first.

SGT Hess

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

From: contact@discount-mats.com
Sent: Tuesday, January 16, 2007 9:44 PM

Subject: Re: Feedback: from discount-mats.com

SGT Hess,

We do not ship to APO addresses, and even if we did, we would NEVER ship to Iraq. If you were sensible, you and your troops would pull out of Iraq.

Bargain Suppliers
Discount-Mats.com

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Yep, you read it right. Nice, huh?

Since they sent such a nice, kind email to our Hero, please feel free to send them one. (And according to Snopes, the Sgt. is all set with mats - apparently he found a supplier who wasn't a complete loser.

WEBSITE:
http://discount-mats.com/

CONTACT INFO:
Email:
contact@discount-mats.com

Phone:
9 a.m. to 5 p.m. CST:
(414) 736-8394

By Mail:
Bargain Suppliers
3259 S.106th Street
West Allis, WI 53227

Check out this interesting bit of info:
WEBSITE INFO:

Registrant:
Faisal Khetani
PO Box 270693
Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53227

Registered through: Teknon Domains
Domain Name: DISCOUNT-MATS.COM
Created on: 23-Mar-05
Expires on: 23-Mar-08
Last Updated on: 03-Mar-06

Administrative Contact:
Khetani, Faisal
sportsfitness@gmail.com
3259 S.106th Street
West Allis, Wisconsin 53227
(414) 543-9634

Technical Contact:
Khetani, Faisal
sportsfitness@gmail.com
3259 S.106th Street
West Allis, Wisconsin 53227
(414) 543-9634


To verify the story:
Snopes confirmation:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/apo.asp

Also posted at Military.com:
http://forums.military.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/69719858/m/2000011801001?r=1740011801001

And Free Republic:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1771033/posts

And A Soldier's Perspective:
http://www.soldiersperspective.us/2007/01/21/discount-mats-disrespects-troops/


And probably a whole lot of other places by now - feel free to list / trackback in the comments section.

All I ask is that you refrain from cursing, threatening, or otherwise lowering yourself to their level. I'm going to try to do the same, but it's going to be tough.

A U.S. Army soldier, from the 502nd Engineer Company, works to disassemble a bridge near Taji, Iraq, Jan. 3, 2007. The bridge is being torn down in order to deter insurgents from transporting weapons. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Jeffrey Alexander


U.S. Army soldiers, from the 502nd Engineer Company, disassemble a bridge near Taji, Iraq, Jan. 3, 2007. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Jeffrey Alexander


U.S. Army soldiers, from the 502nd Engineer Company, disassemble a bridge near Taji, Iraq, Jan. 3, 2007. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Jeffrey Alexander


A U.S. Army soldier, from the 502nd Engineer Company, works to disassemble a bridge near Taji, Iraq, Jan. 3, 2007. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Jeffrey Alexander


U.S. Army soldiers, from the 502nd Engineer Company, carry beams as they disassemble a bridge near Taji, Iraq, Jan. 3, 2007. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Jeffrey Alexander


U.S. Army soldiers, from the 502nd Engineer Company, move pieces of a bridge they disassembled near Taji, Iraq, Jan. 3, 2007. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Jeffrey Alexander



More photo essays at DefendAmerica

Brothers in Arms
Photo by Sgt. Tierney P. Nowland
January 19, 2007
Spc. William Nossaman and an Iraqi policeman wish each other well as the troops begin the operation.

Related:
Brothers in Arms

News of Note
Operation Iraqi Freedom
20 U.S. Service Members Killed in Iraq
Bush getting 2nd chance to defend plan

Homeland Security / War on Terror / Hamas-Hezbollah Happenings
Philippines, U.S.: DNA Confirms Abu Sayyaf Chief is Dead
Guantanamo fails to meet basic British standards: lawmakers (Wasn't aware we had to...someone should let them know we stopped being British a long time ago!)
Somali warlord hands over weapons, men

Supporting Our Heroes
Paralympic summit held for wounded vets

Worldwide Wackos
Rice warns firms more Iran sanctions may come

Homegrown Moonbats
Carter defends Mideast book as accurate
Brandeis Nixes Filming of Carter's Speech

Politics / Government
China Defends 'Satellite Killer' as Weapon of Peace
Former Sen. George Smathers Dead at 93
Sen. Hillary Clinton to Run in 2008 - Sen. Brownback Announces Bid, Too
Schumer Blasts Fellow Dems in New Book
Calif. Lawmaker Seeks Ban on Spanking
Bush unveils new health insurance plan
Two Serbias fight for nation's soul in key election

In the Courts / Crime and Punishment
What Held Hornbeck Back?
Missouri teen met with cops 10 months after allegedly being kidnapped by Michael Devlin
Indiana Police Hunt for Man They Say Took Mother, Four Kids From Home
Tax Fugitive: 'Show Us the Law, and We'll Pay'
Vancouver Pig Farmer Accused of Murdering Six Women

U.N. News
Darfur rebels say government bombs kill 17
Rift on government prevents Abbas-Meshaal meeting
U.S. says Darfur stoking war between Sudan and Chad

Media in the Media / Bloggers in the News / Watching the Web
Young Man Killed in Web of Love (This is just bizarre)
Hackers Use European Windstorm as Cover for Computer-Virus Attack
'Storm Worm' Virus Attacks Computers

Science / Nature
Snow storm rolls across Plains; 8 dead
Working Through the Snow - STORY
Conservationists rally to support sharks
Payment for stem cell eggs debated

Oddities
Cambodian Villagers Hunt Mystery Wild Man
Shot Duck Lives for Two Days in Refrigerator
Drew Barrymore Likes to Run Naked in Irish Wheat Fields

Other News of Note
Texas view on environment is 18 lanes wide-critics
Turkey arrests suspect in death of Armenian editor

Fox News
'Sex Book' Angers Parents of Pre-Teens
Man Survives 16-Floor Fall at Minnesota Hotel

Reuters: Top News
Mexico extradites drug cartel bosses to U.S.
Microsoft could launch Zune in Europe by end 2007
Pancreatic cancer vaccine may help some patients
TV eviction cast as victory for good in racism row
Nasdaq, S&P end up; energy shares gain
Oil jumps 3 percent on colder U.S. weather
Stock investors to brave earnings storm
Bay Street Week Ahead-Oil profits may not pump up stocks
IBM shares fall after quarterly results
Themes for 2007 and beyond
On the radar: Boomer stocks
Motorola to cut 3,500 jobs
Tribune looking at offers, may pursue own action
Oil drop provides cushion for earnings slowdown
Companies press Bush, Congress on climate
Krispy Kreme posts narrower loss
Morgan Stanley unit, Ashford to buy CNL hotels

AP World News
'Idol' judges say they're no crueler now
Hong Kong tutors selling sex appeal
No brawl this time around for Artest
Israeli leader Olmert vows to fight on
Mauresmo ousted from Australian Open
UCLA sends Arizona reeling in Pac-10
Consumer Reports' reputation takes hit
Steelers say coaching search incomplete
Noah lifts No. 1 Gators over Mississippi
Feds ask 100 firms to offer N.O. jobs
James Brown's body moved, no word where

Military.com
Op-ed: Mom Meets President Bush

CENTCOM: News Releases
COALITION FORCES DISCOVER CACHES WITH OVER 250 ARTILLERY ROUNDS
IRAQI ARMY DETAINS TWO WASIT PROVINCIAL OFFICIALS ON SUSPICION OF SMUGGLING IEDS
IP CAPTURES LEADER OF AQI CELL IN SAMARRA

USJFCOM
Training comes to a close in exercise for Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa - podcast
Liveblogging: Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa Mission Rehearsal Exercise 07-1 USJFCOM hosts first-responder focused modeling and simulation demonstration event

Department of Defense
Stability & Security in Iraq Report (pdf)
For Top News Visit DefenseLink

DefendAmerica Week in Review
Sunday - Monday - Tuesday - Wednesday - Thursday - Friday - Saturday

BACKGROUND
IRAQ
Renewal In Iraq
Iraq: Security, Stability
Fact Sheet: Progress and Work Ahead
Report: Strategy for Victory in Iraq
Iraq Daily Update
This Week in Iraq
Multinational Force Iraq
State Dept. Weekly Iraq Report (PDF)
'Boots on the Ground' Audio Archive
Weekly Reconstruction Report (PDF)
Iraq Reconstruction
Maps

AFGHANISTAN
Afghanistan Update
Maps

WAR ON TERRORISM
Fact Sheet: Budget Request
Fact Sheet: War on Terror
Fact Sheet: Terror Plots Disrupted
Waging and Winning the War on Terror
Terrorism Timeline
Terrorism Knowledge Base

Weather
Afghanistan
Bost/Laskar Ghurian Herat Kabul Qandahar

Germany
Ansbach Aschaffenburg Berlin Berlin-Tempelhof Berlin/Schonefeld Bremerhaven
Darmstadt Frankfurt Frankfurt/Main Freiburg/Breisgau Garmisch
Garmisch-Partenkirchen Geilenkirchen Gelnhausen Giessen Kitzingen
Hanau Am Main Heidelberg Mainz Mannheim Nurnberg Stuttgart Trier
Wiesbaden Wurzburg

Gitmo

Guam
Agana Agana Heights Agat Andersen AFB Asan Barrigada

Iraq
Al Azamiyah Al Basrah Al Hillah Al Karkh Al Kazimiyah Al Kut
An Nasiriyah Baghdad Baqubah Mosul Najaf Nineveh Tall Kayf

Japan
Kadena Air Base Okinawa Tokyo Yokohama

Philippines
Baler Radar Site Catanduanes Radar Site Manila

South Korea
Cheju Upper/Radar Chonju Chunchon Inch'on Kunsan Masan Mokp'o
Osan Pusan Seoul Suwon Taegu Taejon Tonghae Radar Site Ulsan Yosu

* If you're deployed, and want to see your location's weather listed here, please email me! *

Today in History
1077 - German King Heinrich IV petitions Pope Gregory VII for forgiveness
1189 - Philip II, Henry II & Richard Lion-Hearted initiate 3rd Crusade
1276 - Pierre de Tarantaise elected Pope Innocent V
1522 - Head inquisitor Adrian Florisz Boeyens elected pope
1542 - Parliament passes bill of attainder against Queen Katherine Howard
1604 - Tsar Ivan IV defeats the False Dmitri, who claims to be the true tsar
1664 - Count Miklós of Zrinyi sets out to battle Turkish invasion army
1677 - 1st medical publication in America (pamphlet on smallpox), Boston
1732 - Russia & Persia sign Treaty of Riascha
1793 - Prussia & Russia sign partition treaty (Poland divided)
1853 - Envelope-folding machine patented by Russell Hawes, Worcester, MA
1861 - Jefferson Davis of Mississippi & 4 other southern senators resign
1880 - 1st US sewage disposal system separate from storm drains, Memphis TN
1908 - New York City, NY, regulation makes it illegal for a woman to smoke in public
1910 - British-Russian military intervention in Persia
1913 - Aristide Briand forms French government
1919 - Sinn Fein proclaims parliament of Free Ireland
1925 - Albanian parliament announces itself a republic; Ahmed Zogoe President
1926 - Belgian parliament accepts Locarno treaties
1932 - USSR & Finland stop non-attack treaty
1940 - Foreign correspondents in Netherlands under censorship
1941 - 1st commercial extraction of magnesium from seawater, Freeport, TX; 1st anti-Jewish measures in Bulgaria; Australia & Britain attack Tobruk, Libya; British communist newspaper "Daily Worker" banned
1942 - Japanese air raid on Rabaul New Britain; Tito's partisans occupy Foca
1943 - Soviet forces reconquer Gumrak airport near Stalingrad; Soviet forces reconquer Worosjilowsk; Vice-Admiral Cunningham appointed British Admiral of fleet
1944 - 447 German bombers attack London; 649 British bombers attack Magdeburg
1945 - British troops land on Ramree, near coast of Burma
1949 - 1st inaugural parade televised (Harry Truman)
1950 - New York jury finds former State Department official Alger Hiss guilty of perjury
1952 - Nehru's Congress party wins general election in India
1953 - John Foster Dulles appointed as Secretary of State
1954 - 1st gas turbine automobile exhibited (New York City NY); 1st atomic submarine, USS Nautilus, launched on Thames River (in CT), christened by First Lady Mamie Eisenhower
1960 - Rock falls traps 437 at Coalbrook South Africa, 417 die of methane poisoning
1961 - Portuguese rebels seize cruise ship Santa Maria
1962 - Snow falls in San Francisco; JFK arrives in Uruguay
1964 - Carl T. Rowan named director of US Information Agency
1965 - Persian premier Ali Mansoer injured
1968 - US B-52 bomber with nuclear bomb crashes in Greenland
1972 - Assam's North East Frontier Agency becomes Arunachal Pradesh territory; Manipur, Meghalaya & Tripura become separate states of Indian union; Mizoram, formerly part of Assam, creates an Indian union territory; Belgium government of Eyskens-Cools forms
1976 - Supersonic Concorde, 1st commercial flights, by Britain & France
1977 - President Jimmy Carter pardons almost all Vietnam War draft evaders; Italy legalizes abortion
1981 - Bernhard Goetz is assaulted for 1st time on a New York subway train
1983 - Reagan certifies El Salvador human-rights abuses have decreased making country eligible for US military aid
1985 - Bomb attack on Borobudur temple in Java
1986 - Bomb attack in East-Beirut, 27 killed
1988 - US accepts immigration of 30,000 US-Vietnamese children
1990 - John McEnroe becomes the 1st ever expelled from the Australian Open for throwing a tantrum & swearing at an official
1991 - CBS News correspondent Bob Simon captured by Iraqis in Persian Gulf
1994 - Lorena Bobbitt found temporarily insane for chopping off spouse's penis
1998 - Pope John Paul II visits Cuba

Birthdays
1338 - Charles V (the Wise), King of France (1364-80)
1743 - John Fitch, inventor (had a working steamboat years before Fulton)
1759 - Johan Valckenaer, Dutch politician/patriot
1771 - Arnold A. Buyskes, Dutch Vice-Admiral/colonial director
1813 - John C. Frémont [Pathfinder], map maker/explorer (western US)/Governor (AZ)
1815 - Horace Wells, dentist (pioneered use of medical anesthesia)
1821 - John Cabell Breckinridge (D), 14th US Vice Pressident (1857-61)/Major-General (Confederacy)
1824 - Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson, Lieutenant-General 2nd Corps (ANV, Confederacy)
1829 - Oscar II Frederik, King of Sweden (1872-1907)/Norway (-1905)/poet
1855 - John M. Browning, US weapons manufacturer
1867 - Maxime Weygand, French General/Governor-General (Algeria)
1884 - Roger Nash Baldwin, founder (American Civil Liberties Union)
1885 - Umberto Nobile, Italian General
1886 - Gustaaf Sap, Belgian minister of Finance/Economy
1887 - Wolfgang Köhler, German/US Gestalt psychologist (Mentality of Apes)
1889 - Pitirim A. Sorokin, Russian/US sociologist (Social mobility)
1908 - Bengt Strömgren Göteborg, Swedish astrophysicist (studied gas cloud)
1920 - Errol Walton Barrow, PM of Barbados (DLP) (1966-76, 1986-87)
1921 - Barney Clark, 1st to receive a permanent artificial heart
1924 - Benny Hill, comedian (Benny Hill Show)
1930 - Valentin Ignatyevich Filatyev, Russian cosmonaut
1950 - Joseph R. Tanner, astronaut (STS 66, 82, sk 97)

Passings
0879 - Boudouin with the Iron Arm, Earl of Flanders
1118 - Paschalis II [Raniero], pope (1099-1118)
1609 - Joseph Justus Scaliger, French inventor of "Julian Period", at 68
1683 - Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, at 61
1774 - Mustapha III, Sultan of Turkey (1957-74), at 56
1793 - Louis XVI, French King (1774-93), beheaded by revolutionaries at 38
1871 - John J. Rochussen, Governor-General of Netherlands-Indies (1845-51), at 73
1892 - John Couch Adams English co-discoverer of Neptune
1924 - Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov Lenin, Russian leader, of a stroke at 54
1944 - Heinrich zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, German major/pilot, shot down
1971 - Richard B. Russell (Senator-D-GA), at 73
1991 - Richard Bolling (Representative-D-MO)/ US civil-rights leader, at 74
1994 - Basel al-Assad, Syrian President Assad's son, in car accident at 31

Reported Missing in Action
1966
Egan, James T., Jr., USMC (NJ)

1967
Baugh, William J., USAF (OH); F4C shot down (w/Spoon), released by DRV March, 1973 - retired as a Colonel - alive and well as of 1998

Conley, Eugene O., USAF (OH); F105D shot down, presumed KIA/BNR

Hogan, Jerry Franks, USN (AL); A4C crashed, presumed Killed/BNR

Kerns, Arthur W., US Army (TX); originally listed as AWOL, later amended to Missing

Spoon, Donald R., USAF (MO); F4C shot down (w/Baugh), released by DRV March, 1973 - alive and well as of 1998

1968
The following US Army personnel reported MIA during a troop insertion that was ambushed:

Elliott, Jerry W., (MS); doorgunner on following UH1D

Hill, Billy D., (NV); doorgunner on lead UH1D

Also reported Missing this day in 1968:
Coalston, Echol W., Jr., US Army (TN); lost overboard from USNS

Kimsey, William A., Jr., US Army (TN); O1D shot down (pilot, w/Ramsay)

Ramsay, Charles J., USMC (NJ); 01D shot down (aerial observer, w/Kimsey)

1973
The following USN personnel presumed Killed/BNR when their EKA3B went overboard and sank following a malfunction during launch attempt:
Christophersen, Keith A., (MN); co-pilot/navigator

Parker, Charles L., Jr. (CA); pilot

Wiehr, Richard Daniel (MN); electronic technician