Congratulations and Best Wishes

I would like to take a moment and say a big CONGRATULATIONS to my friend Maggie.

Maggie is graduating from BMT at Lackland AFB today.

If that's not enough celebration for one week, she is also getting married this weekend.

I am proud of you, Airman Maggie. Way to go!

Leave her some love at Maggie Joins Up.

Good Luck, Maggie!

My dear friend Maggie joined the Air Force.

Maggie is the reason I am blogging now, as it was her encouragement that made me follow through with starting my own.

It has been a bit of a process for her to get everything ready and her contract straightened out, but everything came together for her. She has had the additional blessing/burden of planning a wedding while preparing herself for Basic.

She left yesterday for BMT.

She was anxious, but she was also ready. I know she will do well and I can't wait to celebrate her graduation with her.

I am praying for her mother, who especially needs a little reassurance that everything will turn out ok. I don't think she expected to have a daughter in the military.

Go wish her well at Maggie Joins Up.

Good Luck Maggie!

Rays of Light

It is easy to get caught up in the tragedy of war. There is certainly enough to go around. Broken lives, broken bodies, broken minds, broken nations.

But war, at least war as we presently wage it, also presents an opportunity. It is an opportunity to help improve the lives of those citizens of the countries in which we fight. Our soldiers push their guns to the side and embrace humanitarian efforts with the same, if not more, spirit than they do for combat operations.

Recently, an Air Force unit put out a call for school supplies. They were rebuilding schools, but there were few, if any, supplies to fill them. The families of the Airmen were sending some, but they broadened the effort, and sent the word back in mass to the States. I bought supplies, my work and church donated supplies, six boxes in all. Each one filled with folders, scissors, chalk, markers, pencils and sharpeners, just about anything you can think of.

The thing I love about my country is that almost without fail, if people know about a need, and have a direct way to help, they will do so with enormous genorosity.

We sent them with love and well wishes to the Airmen who organized the effort.

The Airmen thanked us in return, and sent us pictures of themselves making supply packets to hand to the children. I looked up pictures of these types of humanitarian efforts in southern Iraq to create a picture of what happened to all those packets.

There is the hope that these types of humanitarian efforts will help. If that means they help stabilize a country, or they mean inspiring one child, maybe change one negative opinion about the American people, it remains to be seen. Maybe they will sow the seeds of peace.

In the midst of the darkness that is war, light can shine through.

These Airmen are those rays of light.