Good Morning!
I had a great visit with my mom the last few days while she was visiting. I live in Missouri and she lives in Idaho, so we don’t see each other often.
She heads up a ministry at her church, sending care packages to soldiers in Iraq. It’s a pretty big church and they send packages to anyone who submits the name of their son, husband, brother etc.
I mentioned the helmet liners to her and she would love to start putting those in the boxes. It’ll start getting cold there pretty soon and boxes take 3-4 weeks to arrive in Iraq.
Here is some basic information regarding helmet liners -
“Cascade 220 or any soft wool yarn that will knit to gauge. Approx. 175 yds. (5 hanks of 220 will make 6 hats). [ed. The reason the patterns calls for 100% wool yarn is because the headgear the military issues is made of synthetic fiber, which is not as warm as wool. Our troops who are subjected to sub-zero windchills are still cold in synthetic headgear. The goal is to keep them warm by using 100% wool yarn.]
Colors allowed by the military are black, charcoal, brown, tan, olive drab [ed, Black is the preferred color].”
And there are patterns and more information here -
http://www.geocities.com/helmetliner/
If you’d be interested in knitting and donating one I can tell you it would be greatly appreciated. Winters in Iraq are not generally horribly cold, but they can be windy, and wind combined with a temp of 35 degrees can make a person pretty cold.
If you could have your helmet liner finished and mailed to me by November 15, that would get the liners to the soldiers about the middle of December - just in time. 
No matter our opinion on the war itself, we need to support our sons, brothers and husbands who are putting their lives on the line every day.
PM me if you’d be interested and I"ll send you my address.
thank you SO much!!! 
