Random thoughts from the Basement.
with a few Smiles thrown in for good measure.
Published on July 3, 2004 By Grog In Politics
I don’t post much anymore, but I do read all that I have the time for, and even though we have a few vocal members of the military here at Joe User, I would like to add my voice to the mix a little today. Over the past 20 years I have traveled all over the globe and visited more places than I ever thought I would see in my lifetime. One thing that has been the same anywhere we have gone, even if it is for a couple of days is the practice of service to the local community. Normally led by the Chaplain, a group ventures out, to an orphanage, hospital, old age home, or just to someplace where a helping hand is needed. Precious free time is spent helping others, with nothing being asked in return. Every time something is received, but never asked for…… Smiles. Fixing a school, building a clinic, doing yard work, repairing a leaky roof, repairing a soccer field, or any of the other thousands of things these little groups do every year. These people are never ordered to go, the PR folks’ camera’s are put aside for a rake or a shovel, the officers get just as dirty as the junior troops. Do you see this on CNN, Al-Jazeera, BBC, etc., nope, I guess good deeds are just not worthy of the six o-clock news.

Once upon a time I was assigned to stand by one of our planes, answer questions, and sell patches and stickers to the local’s. Well we were in a lovely little place (that looked a lot like the surface of Mars) called Curtain. Curtain is in the North Western portion of Australia, and not the home of the richest people in the world. The Air Show that was put on, drew I would guess 90% of the people living in the area. So in the blazing sun, we stood there answering question after question about our plane and selling over priced patches and stickers. It didn’t take long at all for us to notice that most of the visitors could not afford even a cheap sticker, especially the kids. So the Captain and I decided that we were not going to disappoint, into our pockets we dug and bought about half of our own stickers and patches (yes we had to pay the air show price). No kid went away empty handed for the rest of the day, we were rewarded with smile after smile as we slipped these little gifts into smaller hands. It was the best half a paycheck that I have ever spent.

All I see on the news is what happens when things go wrong. On the news we hear day after day that most of the Iraqi people are good normal people, and that it is only a minority that are killing people. Why then is it when a couple of US Military people are, for lack of a better term Stupidly Ignorant, are all of us Bad?

Just one small thing that I submit for your consideration, most of the Military that have gotten in trouble in Iraq are reservists. They are more like civilians than Military, they spend approximately 36 days a year in uniform, yet they are held out as to what we all are. I think that some of you need to look in the mirror.

In 20 years I have had infinitely more smiles thrown in my direction that rocks, and unless you can prove otherwise that is how I choose to remember my journeys outside of the United States.

An Old Gunny

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