Proud

I know you're wondering what's gotten into me.  Two posts in one day!  But some things you just have to post about.  After I wrote my post this morning (tried last night but my internet connection went down) I went into work.  This is what I found when I pulled into the parking lot:Wheelchairs.  Lots of them.  Dozens of them.  You deserve to hear the story behind how they got here.

I know I've mentioned it before, but we have a mix of professionals here at the PRT.  Not everyone is a rule of law person - remember the cows the agricultural sections guys brought over?  Well, we have a health section too.  They do a lot of great public health related projects and the young Iraqi doctors (male and female) that work with them are simply amazing.

Well, there's this NGO in the US that collected donations to buy wheelchairs for needy Iraqis.  Great idea.  They collected lots of money, bought lots of wheelchairs and shipped them to Iraq.  But how do you distribute them to those that are truly needy?  Just call  PRT Baghdad and talk to Doc Bunning.

Doc then talks to our Operations folks (the PRT members in uniform) and they spread the word on base.  Who wants to come out on their free time to learn how to build wheel chairs and then how to fit a wheel chair to a person?  Then who wants to take their free time to build wheel chairs and distribute them?  In other words, who wants to use up a few weekends doing volunteer work?  It turns out that a lot of people want to do that.

Well, how to then distribute them?  Of course, the folks in green (well, desert colors actually) are the ones to call.

They put together a mission to take these wheelchairs out to needy children.

Well, this is Iraq, and nothing is easy in Iraq.  Things get delayed, obstacles need to get overcome, but it happens.  It happens for the benefit of those who need it most.  And this is just the first set of wheelchairs.

What pleases me the most is that this is not for some minister, or some government agency; this is for individual kids, whose families could never afford to buy this equipment.  It happened because of some kind, generous people back home, because the PRT was here with people who were willing to find a way to make it happen, and because of our service members who were willing to volunteer their free time to make it happen.

I'm not ashamed to say that I'm proud today. I'm proud of the people I work with and I'm proud of the things that we do here.