Capt. Jon Powers is one soldier featured in WP story

[beachmom]

I think this must have been a front page story in the WP today about soldiers coming home from Iraq. There are a couple of paragraphs about Jon Powers:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/13/AR2006051301312_4.html

Jon Powers came home and "swore I would never go back to Iraq until they build a Disney World in Baghdad." But then he thought about how he and his soldiers used to deliver toys and clothing to the orphanage. He thought about how the children had given them something back: a respite from the war. The soldiers would take off their gear, put down their weapons and join the children's soccer matches.

Not long after coming home, the former Army captain knew his work in Iraq was not finished. So he helped start a nonprofit, War Kids Relief, that helps Iraqi children. That's his new career.

The whole article is really good. This excerpt is very telling:

But perhaps the worst is when they don't say anything at all and just go on living their lives, oblivious to the war.

Which is exactly what Army Capt. Tyler McIntyre was trying to explain to some family members while eating at an Italian restaurant when he was home on leave a couple of years ago.

He looked across the restaurant and saw everyone stuffing their faces with pasta and drinking wine. "And everyone's kind of just sitting there doing it," he said.

Which is really sort of extraordinary, he said. The country is at war. People are fighting at this very moment. Don't these people know what's going on? Don't they care?

No, he decided. They have no appreciation for their easy, gluttonous lives and don't deserve the freedom, prosperity and contentment he was fighting to protect.

[wisteria]

1. Very telling!

Sometimes though, I also feel helpless, because I can do nothing more to help our soldiers. I feel like am one of those who doesn't appreciate everything I have and how these soldiers sacrifice so much for our freedom and protection.