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The Difference Between Them and Us
My friend Doug (who is not much of a golfer) made it onto Rush’s radio show today (for the third time, no less) and pointed Rush to a headline story on today’s MSNBC website entitled, “Charity Begins at War.”
It is an affectionate portrait of one of our soldiers, Tom Deierlein, a New York executive who was called up for duty in the Army Ready Reserve. Tom thought he had already fulfilled his commitment when he got a letter out of the blue calling him back to active duty. Tom was stunned initially, but began making the necessary arrangements to be gone from his work, packed up his apartment, and then just as he was ready to report got another call from Uncle Sam: the Army had made a mistake. Tom had fulfilled his commitment and did not need to report.
He did anyway. And while in Iraq he has been making a difference in the lives of ordinary Iraqis.
The Army provided thousands of bags of food and bottles of water to the people of Iraq, but Deierlein decided to go further. Shaken by the malnourished, desperately poor children he saw, he asked loved ones and well-wishers back home who wanted to send him care packages to send supplies for Iraqi kids instead.
Boxes began to arrive.
Deierlein fell into the habit of writing about his Baghdad experiences in monthly e-mail updates to his family members, friends and colleagues. Those e-mail messages get forwarded, and forwarded, and forwarded.
More boxes arrived.
Before long, Deierlein and his friends in his civil affairs company were distributing children’s clothes, shoes, vitamins, toys, soccer balls, school supplies and blankets in one poverty-stricken area after another.
“We really enjoyed those kind of opportunities because you drove through these neighborhoods day after day after day,†Deierlein said. “There’s a lot of innocent, decent people that just are there and are suffering. So even if you could alleviate that suffering a little bit, it really did make you feel good.â€
Doug’s point in calling his buddy Rush was this: we have guys who are not only risking their lives for Iraq but, in addition, finding additional myriad ways to bless the Iraqi people. In contrast, Al Qaeda is blowing up children when they are not finding more heinous ways to murder them.
We have pointed out before how virtuous our soldiers are. Why is it not clear to anyone with half a brain that we are on the side of Right? Why is it not clear that if we leave, they will kill more children?
Another bumper sticker for our bumper sticker war: “Save the Children: Support the Surge!”
You can follow Tom Deirlein’s story in 5 parts this week on MSNBC.com.
God bless Tom Deirlein and the greatest military in the world.