Since I couldn't actually give her any help on what to do with all that fear and anger her realization caused her, she found something on her own. Some way to positively deal with a situation that is just insane. And here's the way.
Regardless of what we think about the war, there are a bunch of people over there who were ordered to be there, who are trying to do the best they can with what they have. And there's a couple of websites out there that try to support those people, that try to allow them to make individual requests and address individual needs - to help the *people* who are forced to fight a war they may or may not believe in.
If you have a couple of minutes, take a look at this site. It's called Any Soldier.com. Some of the requests are so easy - some soldiers simply haven't heard from home, and are on their own for the first time since high school, and would love to receive a letter. Some would like beef jerky and movies. Some of the female soldiers want things we simply take for granted, like razors and deodorant. It was hard for me not to want to respond to them all. But I know this - I will respond to some. I will take all this frustration at not being able to do *anything* about a situation I hate and try and help some others who need it.
This is what they say about themselves:
Sergeant Brian Horn from LaPlata, Maryland, an Army Infantry Soldier with the 173rd Airborne Brigade was in the Kirkuk area of Iraq when he started the idea of AnySoldier to help care for his soldiers. He agreed to distribute packages, that came to him with "Attn: Any Soldier" in the address, to the soldiers who were not getting mail.
Brian is no longer in Iraq but Any Soldier Inc. continues with your support.
Any Soldier Inc. started in August 2003 as a simple family effort to help the soldiers in one Army unit, thus our name. However, due to overwhelming requests, on 1 January 2004 our effort was expanded to include any member, of any of the Armed Services, in harms way.
ok, now back to your regularly scheduled programming.
