Dear Central Illinois Proud Families of Marines:

Thank you all so much for your incredibly generous gifts.  The stockings
were obviously made with much love and care and my Soldiers and I very
much enjoyed receiving them on Christmas.  I have attached some pictures
of the Soldiers here in the Battalion's Operations Center with their
Stockings on Christmas day.  This is just a small sampling of the
Soldiers from Task Force Longhorn who received your gifts.  In our BN
alone, we received over 200 stockings!!!  This allowed us to ship a
stocking to every one of our Soldiers spread throughout 27 bases in
Baghdad and Southern Iraq.  Amazing.  Thank you all so much. 

To tell you a little bit more about our unit.  We are the 303d Military
Intelligence Battalion, an Intelligence Collection Battalion.  We have a
distinguished history dating back to WWII and we are The Army's most
decorated Military Intelligence Battalion.  As a collection Battalion,
our Soldiers are responsible for collecting all the intelligence to help
Combat Commanders make decision about their operations.  When not
deployed in Iraq, the Battalion is based out of Fort Hood, in Central
Texas. 

Many of our Soldiers are on their second or third rotation in Iraq and
some are even on their forth.  This is the Battalion's third deployment
in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.  Prior to this deployment, the
303d Military Intelligence Battalion had a previous rotation to Iraq
from Jan - Dec 2004 and then again from Aug 2006-Oct 2007.  We arrived
in Iraq for this deployment right before Thanksgiving.  This tour should
be a twelve month rotation for us, which means we will all be home for
the holidays next year. 

Thank you all again for your wonderful generosity; it is truly amazing
and awe inspiring.

v/r
MAJ Michelle Krawczyk
Task Force Longhorn Operations Officer