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Check Militarysupportconnection.com and Anysoldier.com. All donations by check should be made out to the United States Postal Service because donation money goes toward sending packages.

The first thing the 28-year-old from St. Bernard would do was smell the handwritten letters.

"It sounds so crazy, but you smell all those home smells that you don't smell in Iraq - the cologne or perfume or the smell of someone who just got out of a shower," said Kemplin, of the Ohio National Guard's 324th Military Police Company. "It just feels like someone from home is hugging you."

Kemplin stood Saturday near boxes as she helped West Side residents pack early Christmas gifts for the troops abroad. "I've seen the biggest soldiers break down and cry when they open these packages," she said.

Hundreds of West-Siders put together some 500 packages Saturday - containing Christmas decorations, Gatorade mix, CDs and DVDs, magazines, Little Debbies, Pop-Tarts, and Polaroid photographs of the packers. It was all part of the Support Our Troops packing rally at Bayley Place Community Wellness Center in Delhi Township.

To mail the 500 packages to Iraq, organizers expect postage costs of nearly $8,000 - nearly $6,000 of which had been raised by noon Saturday.

Several people from the region who have been directly affected by the war attended the rally, including Sgt. Paul Brondhaver, who was injured in July, and the families of two soldiers killed in the war.

"I think this is awesome, just unbelievable," said Ed Wright of Delhi Township, who attended in remembrance of his son, Spc. James C. Wright, killed in Iraq a year ago.

But organizer Mia Supe stresses that Saturday's rally is more than a one-day event. "The most important thing we're doing today is planting seeds so people keep this going on," said Supe as the commander of a local American Legion post handed her a check for $600. "We want to teach people how to do this on their own, not necessarily at an event this big, but little things in their school or their work."

E-mail rforgrave@enquirer.com