Freedom's Fidelity

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Weekend Round-Up and a New Addition

Well, I had a pretty cool weekend. Enjoyed a lot of freinds I hadn't seen for a bit, spent some time at the Taste of Chicago, then walking around the city to one of our favorite places to eat/drink, the Green Door Tavern, then to our "summer home" for the 4th on Sunday night. I heard and saw fireworks pretty much non-stop. But it was Saturday at the Green Door that kind of stands out.

It was there that I ended up in a conversation with an Army nurse and her husband, who had served in Gulf War I. The girlfriend and I told how we send letters and care packages to soldiers through Soldier's Angels. He was impressed and said that it really does mean a lot to the soldiers especially the younger ones and especially their spouses. It was good to hear that as I have never received a letter in reply, which I completely understand of course - they are busy after all. But still, it's hard to keep sending letters of one sided-conversations and care packages, when you can't get it out of your mind that what you are sending just might be disappearing down the post-office black hole. I'm definitely going to make sure I keep it up.

Anyway, lets just call the guy 'T' since I don't know if I should or should not use his name, we talked for a few hours about a lot of things, and he is deploying to Baghdad in a few months. The guy is a real soldier, the kind of man that honestly makes me feel very small. His wife was understandably nervous about his deployment, but he wants to go, he really was excited about getting out there and helping the Iraqis build their country. He talked of all the good things that are going on over there and thought it was a shame that these young kids, doing all this work while risking their lives, weren't getting the proper credit/recognition. What else is new? It's a recurring theme, there is a considerable gulf between what our MSM newspapers report, and what is actually happening.

It got later and they had to take off, but not before I gave him my email address and the link to this site. If things work out as planned, he's going to send me some updates of what's going on with his division/troops/company (sorry, don't know the proper terminology) in Baghdad. So, it looks like Freedom's Fidelity will soon have its very own foreign correspondent in Iraq! How many does the New York Times have?

posted by Paul  permalink | |