My pal Maryann over at soldier's Angels Germany has this awesome story.
On one of those days in Iraq where I wasn't sure if I'd see my daughter again, I was working at a checkpoint near a small camp in the desert. (...)
On this particular day one of the locals had his little girl with him. She was shyly watching me from behind his legs. When I smiled and waved at her, she brazenly ran up to me with a big smile and held out her arms, expecting to be picked up.
At first I was shocked at her sudden bravery, and it took me a second to reach down and pick her up. When I did, she immediately kissed me on my cheek and then nestled in as if she meant to stay a while.
I looked toward her father and he immediately began talking rapidly in Arabic and gesturing at me. Our translator quickly explained that he, the father, had been locked in a prison for most of the child's life. He had been sentenced to death for being a Shiite dissident traitor.
The man went on to say that soldiers wearing the same patch on the shoulder as I was (the 101st Airborne Division) had freed him shortly after we began the liberation of Iraq. His daughter from then on believed that the famous Screaming Eagle patch of the 101st meant that we were angels sent to protect her family.
Read the whole story here.
You rock BeerGirl!
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9 comments:
Outstanding story!
THIS is the kind of thing MSM needs to pick up on. I just wish we knew HOW to get it out there.
Exactly my point when I comment at the Conference. Smink and the other PAOs write these great stories, but the general public has to search it out. That's passive. We need to be aggressive.
Hey Sis - we like aggressive, don't we?
Awesome story! I kinda met you at the conf on pub crawl night:)
sk - you were carrying the yellow fuzzy thing right?
I saw your comment on Sgt.B's blog....about my entrance???????
What does that mean? I was sooooo well behaved that night. Why I would almost call it demure.
"BeerGirl". Great. People are going to think I'm an alcoholic or something.
I'll have you know I rarely drink more than a liter a day. Of course, German beer actually *does* have alcohol in it... as well as a decent flavor.
I mean, hops, malt and water. It's just that simple. What part of that do Coors, Miller, et al NOT understand?
Anyway. Where was I?
Oh, thanks for the link, Maggie.
This really is a great story and very typical of what I hear from the guys all the time.
Aggressive is gooooood. verr good.
But Maggie, we *do* disagree.
The in-theater PAO's simply cannot get the stories published. They write them, illustrate them with beautiful, moving photos, put it out on the wire, and no one picks it up. Smink can't make the stories appear on the nightly news anymore that you can.
The problem of getting the word out is higher and deeper than the PAO's. The uppers in the military need to develop a better way to disseminate stories like the one Maryann posted. Remember, I said the uppers- NOT the PAO's- need to develop a new distribution method for stories.
I had the yellow dude at Frans. The yellow fuzzy thing is a boobah...this one wore a name tag that said "Hi I'm JP Borda", "Pull my finger". GunnNutt actually invited the creature as a tribute to JP from his days in Afghani. And the entrance? LOL Priceless actually:) Mooning vs Flashing...I agree with your assessment BTW.
You hit the nail on the head. All we see from the MSM on Iraq is the doom and gloom.
SK - next year we have to get FbL to flash with us! Are you in?
JHJ - You only like my mind because it's just like yours.
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