Hi all, found my 18yr old son is off to afghan in a few weeks, and as always I've loads of questions, how do I find out the address I send letters and care packages to? How do I find out when his tour finishes? When he returns where does he fly into? And can we be there? I've heard something about a letter I print off ???? I think parents, OHs, etc ought to be told these important things or is this just another I have to accept as 'The Army Way'! I'm trying not to let the thought of him going rule my life but if I knew just these few little things it'd be a bit easier! Sorry I know I'm on a panic spree but he's my little blonde boy ( all 6ft 4' of him) hope someone can help x

There is usually a "welfare" presentation for wives before a regiment goes away, perhaps you could ask him to look into it so you could get to one of these. Thats usually where you will get all of this information
He will be able to give you his address, they usually get it before they go, but he may have to e-mail you once he is there.
Believe it or not, even though its in the middle of no-where, the guys and girls get good access to internet and phones.

He'll find out when his tour finishes. You probably won't find out a date until a month or so before he's due back, and even then it can change last minute!
You can either meet him at Brize, or usually the whole regiment will go back to their unit and meet the families there.

The letters he can print off are e-blueys. Go onto https://www.ebluey.com/bfpo/load_log...TOKEN=51279186

and you can register, but you will need his address to do this.
Or you can go to the post office, and ask for some blueys to write and post the usual way (will take about a week to get there).
There is alot of info on the forums about boxes to send.

Thank you so much for this information it's helped a lot, I've now got some information, whereas I had none you won't believe what huge sigh of releif this has given me thank you again your a treasure x

If you can't get to the welfare presentation get him to get you a deployment pack that has loads of information for you, my OHs Regt also has a secret facebook page run by someone on the barracks where we can ask questions and they post all the info such as medal parade dates and r&r dates, might be worth him finding out if his Regt do a similar thing, although I found out from the other wives and girlfriends as my OH is pretty useless at telling me stuff!
He also signed me up to army net but I haven't used it yet so I don't know how good it is for info etc.

When he gets there, ask him for his Paradigm account number (it may take a few days to get it), this is his the account he gets to make limited, but free calls, usually 30 mins a week as long as they don't have a comms shut down.

Family & Friends | Paradigm Secure

Now assuming he's still fairly young, he may not actually think to phone as regularly as you may like however, with the account number, you can leave the odd (it only holds 10 messages) 2 min message for him to pick up, plus, once you have his account details, his name and rank, you can add additional money on so he's got no excuse not to call!

If you do a search on "Enduring free post" then it will end up on an MOD site that tells you the limits of the free post (what you can send/size restrictions/weight limits), you can send heavier items and pay, but not larger.

The e-blueys you can add photo's to, so you can send him out pictures of the family/christmas/snow (or is that too mean...)

Just to add a little extra to the thread

I would recommend going along to the welfare brief if you can, ours was held in the evening so folks from further afield could make it. Ask as many questions as you like. Take as much information away with you as you can and telephone numbers. We had lots of mums and dads attend the brief and I think it helped them to get to grips with what their sons were going to be doing etc..

My son had been posted to Germany, and was awaiting to see if he was going out to the sandpit.

He was.......then he wasn't............then he was again.

He had been in Germany 3 weeks and then he was off for 2 weeks training out there..............then he was staying, then he was going back to Germany. Now he is staying. He is BCR for a brigade?

We have NO address to send him mail/parcels (and contact lenses) as yet, and although he has managed to phone us the once, he still hasn't got an address for us?

So we continue to wait for him to phone.

We had never heard of "Welfare Brief"

Maybe thats just a teenage thing.............."don't tell the parents anything" (see ya in 3 months)

When my oh was about to go the sand pit, he had an opportunity to put two names and address down I think for a welfare pack. He put me and his mum down and it was very helpful, told you in detail how to sign up to send enlists and even included some blueys and the measurements etc for packages. Ask him about this, it explains everything!

To send e-blueys that should say sorry, not enlists.... Stupid predictive!!

The problem is he only passed out 4weeks ago, so he is joining his battalion on tour, as they began their tour 4 weeks ago! So I won't be getting a welfare briefing, so I've asked him to ask for a deployment pack, and all your answers have helped so much, phew it's a good job your here, I don't know what I'd do, thank u all once again it's priceless having this forum xx

Originally Posted by Regan21

My son had been posted to Germany, and was awaiting to see if he was going out to the sandpit.

He was.......then he wasn't............then he was again.

He had been in Germany 3 weeks and then he was off for 2 weeks training out there..............then he was staying, then he was going back to Germany. Now he is staying. He is BCR for a brigade?

We have NO address to send him mail/parcels (and contact lenses) as yet, and although he has managed to phone us the once, he still hasn't got an address for us?

So we continue to wait for him to phone.

We had never heard of "Welfare Brief"

Maybe thats just a teenage thing.............."don't tell the parents anything" (see ya in 3 months)

It's more likely that the 'teenage thing' is making him abit reluctant to ask for info that he needs. Also he may be a bit busy. If you know the name of the unit he's based with you should be able to get in contact with welfare back in Germany. You should be able to find some phone numbers via google. If not feel free to pm me and I'll get Mr K to see what he can find.

Well thanx for that Kazz................we hope he will contact us over the weekend with the details we need. If not, I will be in touch.

Thank you kindly for the offer.

loads of good info there. When my lad did his first tour I got no info at all, so was kind of flying blind, this place helped loads once I found them. On the second tour I was rather put out when I saw the huge amount of info his wife had ( he wasn't married first tour) but he said the difference was that this time the whole brigade was going out- so they were more organised, but the first time it was just his troop- they went out attached to another unit.
Another suggestion hun, if you have facebook is armymums.uk. Just army mums so you'll get loads of support and info to compliment this forum

BCR - Battle Casualty Replacement - basically this means that he is/was held in reserve until they needed someone to fill in a gap - because they don't know where the gaps will appear, it's difficult for him to say exactly where he will be located (and hence the mail address).

Having said that, once he is there, he should be able to get his mail address to you - sorry to say but this is probably the easiest/quickest way. If you're still having issues, get in touch with his parent units Welfare Office. If you don't know the number PM me the Parent Unit details and I'll see what I can do.

Regan: The "Welfare Brief" is more aimed at partners than at parents. I'd be surprised if your son would have wanted you to go anyway - little embarrassing for a roughty-toughty squaddie to have his dear mum at these types of things. I know it sounds harsh but us hard bastards have an image to keep up!

Also, despite this being the 21st Century, bear in mind that your lads might be working strange hours, undoubtedly working long hours, there is a timezone difference, they may be at the end of a very long supply chain, they may not have good access to phones/internet. Please don't despair, especially if other wives/partners/mums say "Well my lad phoned me every night at 1800 without fail" - not all of them will have this luxury, so please don't think it's their fault if they can't get in touch with you as often as you would like.

My boy got his welfare pack last week..............he's been out in the sandpit for a month.

He has managed to leave a few messages via FB. Today he posted his date for R&R. So off to Brize after Crimbo.