Progressive Wednesday

Truly Supporting Our Troops: E-mail

E-mail:

Mary Adams is too good at saying goodbye. To whom? To soldiers headed to Iraq. How many soldiers? 56,000:

She’s a USO volunteer and since 2002 has made it a personal goal to send off every soldier here. This 71-year-old never misses a flight.

Widowed, she has no children. But when you watch her work, you realize to Mary Adams every kid in camouflage is hers.

She shakes their hands. She encourages them to stay in touch with their loved ones. She gives them witty pep talks. She’s doing far more than I am for these women and men who sacrifice so much. Sacrifice, though, is the wrong word. I don’t know if there is a word in English for it. Maybe there’s a sentence: they lay down their lives hoping not to kill, but hoping others might live.

We know we’ve asked a lot of you to donate small amounts of money here and there to nonprofits we admire for their progressive agendas. So, this time, we’re going to point you somewhere else. We’re going to ask you to lift nothing more than a virtual pen.

eMail Our Military is an organization whose name kind of says it all. After a simple registration process for the protection of our military, you’ll be able to email soldiers, lift their spirits, and start an important and helpful conversation. When I was teaching at Ohio State, many of my students ended up getting shipped off to Iraq. The branch campus where I worked was the place of study for many poor students, a great many of them were in ROTC or the reserves to help pay for college. During one class, a student got a phone call, left the room, and waved me into the hallway to tell me he had to leave immediately because his unit got called up. Another student cried in front of me as he feared the worst when he got shipped off (he drove semi-trucks, and told me that if attacked the survival rate was about as small as it gets).

One student, Adam, he emailed me several times from Iraq, asking me how my classes were going, letting me know that he was okay, and telling me that he planned on going back to college when he returned. I’ve lost touch with Adam. I’ve thought many times of looking over casualty lists, but I can’t bring myself to do it. But I’m going to start doing something today. I’ve printed the form. I’ve filled it out. I’m anxious to start up new conversations with men and women I admire more than I can express.

It’s nice to put a “Support Our Troops” magnet on your car. It’s nicer to start a conversation with a soldier who works harder than most of us can imagine, who probably pines for words from home every day. Please join me, and register, not tomorrow, but today.