FWIW, I'll comment while this thread is still open. As many of you know I remained at what used to be Club Stogie for the sake of the troops that were supported there and some donation efforts that were underway - didn't want to see any interruption in the flow of cigars to those who counted on them. My efforts weren't needed here as Fred and Tony had things under control.
The program fizzled out there and I agree with John that it became a non-priority for the "new administration". I won't blame Jon alone because the forums were sorted out and re-organized by some of the mods there too. Doesn't matter who did it or why, but the end result was that the troop support threads got moved to a section rarely viewed by most members. Both John and I questioned that and mentioned it would result in a loss for the troops but they wanted to sit tight and see what happened. All the while, John and other faithful continued provide support for the troops despite the lack of support from Puff.
Due to some personal circumstances I've been unable to continue the troop support effort, and coupled with the fact that the effort is invisible there it's as John described - pretty much been left for dead. There are occasional requests from soldiers that I haven't been able to fulfill - I didn't refer them to Fred because even though the troops are supported here I didn't want to dilute the effort with requests from outside this forum. As a result of the issue raised by this thread however I've been offered help with those requests so hopefully that will work out.
Finally this - I fully agree with and understand John's frustration with the lack of support for the troops at Puff. I believe his intent for this thread was to vent his frustration, hoping some Puff faithful will see what they've done to what was an honorable effort. I fully support him because nobody has been a more generous and faithful supporter of our troops than John, and he has every right to speak his mind without apology. For those that are using this thread to bash Puff, boasting about using inflammatory posts and other efforts to get banned there, you're completely missing the point and IMO diluting John's message. There are many other opportunities to expose Puff's shortcomings - please let this be about what John intended (and if Scott is right about the log-in thing, you may still have a voice over there
).
