Bomb Them With Love

Iraq, Personal

On 19 October 2004, I had the pleasure of listening to Dr. James R. Hodges, Task Force Flight Surgeon, Aviation Task Force, Operation Iraqi Freedom. He told of his time spent in Iraq and many of those things were things that you do not hear of from the mainstream media.

One of those stories related one of his first helicopter flights after arriving in-country. Helicopters fly low in Iraq. When you’re a civilian, that can be somewhat unnerving to see approaching. That day was no different. Dr. Hodges saw one valiant Iraqi man react to the appearance of their helicopter by hurling his family to the ground and covering them with his body.

That Iraqi man was convinced that his family was about to be fired upon by the helicopter crew. He made the terrible but brave decision that if this were to happen then he would give his own life protecting those he loved from death. I say it was a terrible decision because it is one that, in a perfect world, no husband and father would ever be called upon to make. Yet, what might you do if you saw a military helicopter coming toward your defenseless family a mere 50 meters off of the ground? He did what he felt he had to do, as terrible as that duty must have felt at the time.

And then the bombs came. That’s right, our soldiers bombed that Iraqi family. But, not with explosives. For, you see, an enlisted member had come up with an idea to help win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people by making them look forward to seeing the helicopters instead of dreading their coming. This nameless enlisted member took an old water bottle and filled it with candy and then would toss it out of the aircraft toward, but a safe distance away from, people on the ground. This Iraqi family was the recipient of just such a “candy bomb.”

As they flew away, Dr. Hodges told of this Iraqi man cautiously approaching the nearby “casing” and then taking its contents to his children. Within days, valiant men were no longer covering their families when they heard helicopters coming. Instead, children were lining the roof tops of houses and other structures, jumping up and down, shouting, and begging the crews to bomb them.

This type of ingenuity is common among the brave men and women in our armed forces. They are there in Iraq. They interact with the people and know best how to win their hearts and minds. Unfortunately, this is a double edged sword. It means that they have to live with the risk that some of those civilians they are working among are actually insurgents looking to kill them.

And, sometimes their good ideas cost more than some candy and a bottle of water. This is where you step in. You can’t drop candy bombs on eager kids, but you can help to send a payload of love from the American people to somewhere where it will do the most good.

The Spirit of America exists to help people like this bright and anonymous enlisted member put their ideas into action by matching up their ideas with your dollars. And, they’re quite successful at it. Consider what they have done by reading the thank you notes:

• “Soccer Jerseys, provided by ‘Spirit of America’, were a tremendous hit with people in Wassit Province, Iraq. We passed out nearly 500 red, white, and blue jerseys throughout the province. Men, boys, and girls eagerly sought the jerseys handed out by the DevilDogs of 3/23. The Marines made particular efforts to find sandlot soccer games in order to distribute the jerseys.

  “Despite every effort to ‘divvy’ up the colors by sides on the field, it just never happened. Try as you might, the kids playing just crowded about the HumVees to get a jersey, as fast as you passed them out, new people joined the crowd to obtain one too!

  “Over the next several days, it was easy to spot the new jerseys! The soccer players wore them day after day and were the most enthusiastic of people returning the friendly waves of Marines moving through the streets.

  “People say there are no ’silver bullets’ for improving things in Iraq. I don’t know. Spirit of America just might be a silver bullet. We found that giving gifts as acts of friendship - and the person to person interaction that it involved - helped build positive relationships. These people had heard terrible things about Americans for years and years. So for the Iraqis being able to receive something special and look into an American’s face and touch their hand makes a difference.” — Lt. Col. David Couvillon

• “After giving the dental supply gifts, on the walk back to our building, all (yes all) people came out of their houses along the way. The children followed us everywhere, shook hands and gave us high-fives. Shiite women, mothers, aunts and grandmothers, came into the street to wave and wish us a safe journey.

  “We were shown by the village that they not only trusted us, but considered us as a part of their tribal family. That display of trust was the crowning moment of our interaction with them.” — Lt. Col. Al Burghard

• “I cannot begin to thank you enough for your support. The initiative and focused support provided by you and Spirit of America are beyond anything we have experienced. We are happily modifying our embarkation plans to take this gift of resources with us overseas where they will make an enormous impact. In an imperfect world with our Sailors and Marines going in harm’s way, your gifts will reduce adversarial relationships and bridge cultural gaps. You have significantly impacted our ability to do good and, I fervently hope, reduce the potential for combat.” — Maj. Gen. Jim Mattis, 1st Marine Division
• “The water containers Spirit of America provided were distributed in the Radwahniya’a Nahia of Western Baghdad. This area is primarily agricultural / rural farmland and economically depressed. As I’m sure SFC Soper told you, potable water is an issue, water piped to the house is a rare exception, not the rule, so the water containers are very welcome. We have worked with the Iraqi Red Crescent to construct compact water treatment stations so there is potable water in the area that the containers can be filled with and then brought home.

  “A big part of what we are trying to do here is help the government establish credibility and the Nahia Advisory Council is the ground level of the government, so we try to help them out as much as we can. The council members were extremely grateful for the donations and have asked us to help them get a letter of thanks to Spirit of America.” — Maj. Rob Misajon

• “Things are going great…at the various sites! We currently have over 130 students learning masonry, carpentry, electrical and plumbing skills with more on the way in the near future. The Spirit of America tools continue to be a key motivator for the new students and a huge enabler for the graduates that we employ with local contractors upon completion of the program.” — Lt. John Mark Serre

Those projects, as successful as they were, are just the beginning of the good that can be done. But our troops and the Spirit of America need your help to do more and today is the final day of the Blogger Challenge. $5, $50, $500, or $5,000, it doesn’t matter. Just click the image to find out how to make your contribution.

MickC @ December 15, 2004