'Care packages' made life in Iraq a little easier

Capt. Dale Malleck

"Care packages" sent by a McCook woman to a soldier in Iraq made his stay in a hostile country just a little bit more bearable.

Capt. Dale Malleck, the son of Gene and Marge Malleck of McCook, wrote in an e-mail to the Gazette that he is "back from war," and enjoying life now in McCook and Nashville, Tenn.

"I have returned (thank God) and I am really enjoying my time right now of being around friends and family. The quiet serenity of McCook is quite a contrast to the sirens and bombs going off in Iraq!! I like this MUCH better:)," he wrote.

Malleck said he was deployed with a unit from Minnesota. They were in Iraq for about 10 months when they learned they would be there another four months.

"It was very demoralizing," Malleck wrote, "but it made things that we got from home just that much more special. I started receiving care packages from Linnea Budke (of McCook) monthly.

"She also sent over some extras and said, 'If there are other soldiers who aren't receiving anything, please give this to them so that they know they are being thought of.'" Malleck said he also received some packages from the Altar Society.

Malleck wrote, "Until you've been in a place where the temperatures sore up to 130 degrees, there is nothing but wind and sand, and the people that are there want to kill you, then you would never fully appreciate how much these care packages meant to me!!"

Malleck said he now has to have physical therapy on his back.

He joked, "I guess I must be falling apart:)." He said he planned on buying a Jacuzzi in Nashville, where he's moving, but his sister (Lori Hilker of McCook) told him that Blaine Budke sells Jacuzzi's in McCook.

"I thought that as nice as the Budke family had been to me, sending me care packages, that I would go ahead and give them business instead of someone in Tennessee. Blaine told me, "We really appreciate what you guys do for us."

Malleck ends his e-mail: "The people of McCook, Nebraska, have hearts bigger than any place I have ever been!"