What, American Soldiers Do Something Good?

What? American soldiers do something good?

Welcome to this morning's edition of Red, White and Blue, friends. This blog is dedicated to showing the positive side of America you don't usually hear about in the press, inspired by the relentless barrage of negative sentiment aimed towards our country that I have seen in our schools. What follows is an article describing only one of the many good works of our men and women in uniform in Afghanistan. Many good things do, and are, happening over there courtesy of the efforts of our troops. You don't hear about it, partly because the media doesn't believe that good news sells papers, and also partly because the media is dominated by people on the left whose agenda is to denigrate our country and sabotage its foreign policy. More on that later. For now, read on, pass it along and understand it happens far more often than the media and the Democratic Party want you to believe.


Once again, old friends mobilize to aid Afghan people
Thursday, February 22, 2007
The Oregonian

I t's been a cold winter in Camp Alamo. That's the compound within the Kabul Military Training Center in Afghanistan where members of the Oregon National Guard conduct their mission to train and mentor officers and soldiers of the Afghan National Army.

And anyone who leaves the camp can't miss seeing the 2,000 refugees who've settled just outside.

Col. Jim Lyman, commander of the Training Assistance Group, sent an e-mail to his friend Gerry Williams in Portland on Saturday. "This morning it is snowing" in Kabul, he wrote.

He wrote the same in January, and in December. "Basically, it's been below zero since Dec. 1," Gerry says.

And a lot of the refugees huddled outside Camp Alamo have no warm clothing. About half are children.

So naturally, Gerry decided to try to do something to help.

Gerry's been working long hours for months to support Oregon's humanitarian and military mission in Afghanistan. He's doing it because Jim Lyman is an old college friend from Oregon State University, and Jim asked for help.

But it's more than that. Gerry wants to support the Oregon troops in that freezing, faraway place.

A few months ago I wrote about Gerry and his fraternity brothers, when they sent 300 gallons of paint to Kabul so volunteers from the Oregon National Guard could paint a neonatal unit in a Kabul hospital.

Gerry contacted Miller Paint Co. in Portland, which enthusiastically supported the project. Gerry's frat brothers talked to employers and friends and arranged for donations of cash, brushes and other painting equipment, and for shipping by Freightliner and Blackwater USA, a private security contractor.

The neonatal unit is sparkling today, but it's low on medical supplies. In December, Jim e-mailed Gerry, noting that the hospital had no umbilical clamps.

Gerry got busy, contacting local hospitals and wholesale medical equipment providers. Owens & Minor Distribution Inc. in Portland came through. The company donated more than 500 clamps and shipped them directly to Kabul. The clamps arrived in late January.

And then Gerry got another request from Jim. Could he and their college friends collect children's coats for the young people freezing outside Camp Alamo?

Gerry immediately set up a nonprofit organization he named Coats for Kids in Kabul Inc.

Once again he contacted his OSU frat brothers, who once again were generous.

But this time Gerry also tapped into a network of local business leaders. Safeway Inc. set up collection boxes in its Oregon headquarters in Clackamas. Reser's Fine Foods employees collected coats, as did those at Miller Paint. And Goodwill of Oregon offered coats and other warm clothing.

Families at Archbishop Howard School in Northeast Portland, which Gerry's children attend, have filled eight huge boxes with coats. The Hall Boulevard Baptist Church in Tigard, where Gerry's mother attends services, has collected a pile.

Local Oregon National Guard armories also have filled boxes with children's coats.

Gerry has made the rounds of donation locations collecting coats, which he's storing in a 14-foot truck in front of his home. The effort has surpassed its goal of 1,000 coats.

Soon the coats will be sorted, cleaned and taken to Miller Paint to be shrink-wrapped. From there Freightliner will ship them to the East Coast, where Blackwater USA will move them on to Kabul.

"The coats will follow the same path as the paint took," Gerry says.

In two to three weeks, members of the Oregon National Guard will be passing out warm coats to children outside the walls of Camp Alamo.

And then Gerry will get busy again, arranging for more paint to be sent to finish painting the hospital's interiors.

By then, the Oregon National Guard men and women should be headed home. They've done hazardous and humane work in Kabul. "We were rocketed for the first time about two weeks ago," Jim wrote Gerry on Saturday, "and then we had six soldiers in our recruit holding company come down with meningitis." They'll be glad to come home to Oregon.

And when they do, Gerry plans to take a rest.

But even in the midst of his incredible campaign to support Oregon troops and the Afghan people, Gerry enjoys the work. You can tell by the quotation that rests at the bottom of every e-mail he sends, whether he's requesting help, or communicating with Jim, or thanking someone for a donation.

It says: "The faith, the energy, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it -- and the glow from that fire can truly light the world."

Margie Boule: 503-221-8450; marboule@aol.com

©2007 The Oregonian