Army Theme.  First of all, I received some the THE BEST ideas from this site and combined them for our party.  THANK YOU.    My 6-year old wanted to have an Army themed birthday.  For this invitations, I used verbage from ideas in this web site. On the front was "ATTENTION RECRUITS" Please plan to come celebrate "Private (name)" 6th Birthday". I had clip art pictures of tanks, Army men, and planes on the front. On the inside, I had the standard DATE, TIME, LOCATION, RSVP. I used miliary time 1100 - 1400(with civilian time 1:00 - 4:00) underneath. Location:  (your last name) Military Base + address.  Date typed in miliary style:  13 July, 2003.  RSVP: Commanding Officer + phone number. I also typed at the bottom in all caps "GEAR WILL BE ISSUED ... CHOW WILL BE SERVED ... PREPARE TO GET DIRTY ... OBSTACLE COURSE ... WATER GERNADE FIGHT" Then in small print in () I wrote "Commanders, your recruits will get wet and dirty. Please bring a change of clothes and towell".  On the day of the party, I hung a typed note on the front door that said "RECRUITING OFFICE, PLEASE COME IN". I had a TV table and chair set up at the door and I greeted each child by saying "Hi, Soldier". Please give me your full name and age.  I wrote that down on my clipboard + paper then gave them their dog tags. I told them to proceed to the MESS HALL (sign hung from doorway) for some chow. When everybody arrived, our oldest son was dressed in boots, jeans, camouflage shirt and hat, whistle. We got them out to the porch , had them sit down and called them one by one up to a table to "issue gear". They got a homemade camouflage bag, helmet, binocular, squirt gun. I then painted their faces in camouflage paint (from Army Surplus Store). First we did exercises with our oldest son saying "Staff Seargent says" and they answered "Yes SIR". We then ran an obstacle course (Goodyear tire gave me used spare tires, Home Depot supplied a HUGE box) - tires, boxes to run through, cones to run through, tied rope to chairs for a belly crawl, up the swing set, down the slide then swung on a rope over a kiddie size pool.  We timed them with a stop watch. Had two bean bag tosses (made out of camouflage material). One - can stacked on a trash can, the other, spay painted circles for them to "toss the bombs" in the circles. Then there was an area roped off and they were blind flolded one by one to walk through the "mine field".  Water grenade-looking balloons. You either won or lost if you stepped on one!  Then they had to find the missing "American Flag".  I had hid a small flag at one of our neighbor's back yards.  The kids had 4 back yards they could look in. Our last game before "more chow" and presents was "find the plastic army men" in the front yard.  I had bought a ton of plastic guys at the dollar store and threw them in the yard.  They all made a dash to find them.  Had lunch, opened presents and also gave them free items (key chains, stickers, pencils, bumper sticker and a bag that our local Army Recruiting Office gave me when I called. I put their names on this bag so all their gear and Pinata candy could be stored in here too.  We finished presents, went back outside for the "Tank" Pinata (birthdayexpress.com), cake that was decorated with plastic Army things that I supplied the local bakery and finshed with a "water grenade fight". I think it was a very successful three hours!  Again, between our local Army Recruiting office, Birthday Express and all camouflage tableware from another site and the name is escaping me right now - we had fun!