Wisconsin Children Re-Supply Iraqi School Destroyed By Insurgents
“We got to give them a chance.”
MNF-I:
KUTIMIYAH — As if the last day of school wasn’t enough to put smiles on Kutimiyah children’s faces, they also received a special surprise courtesy of 3rd Infantry Division Soldiers.
Soldiers of 1st Battalion, 9th Field Artillery, delivered school supplies to the children May 24, courtesy of Mrs. Casandra Hanson’s 9th grade literature class at Germantown High School, in Germantown, Wis.
The children had been without a school for several months after it was ravaged by insurgents, said 1st Lt. Greg Highstrom, leader of 2nd Platoon, Battery B. The insurgents cracked windows, damaged the building’s structural integrity and destroyed most of the children’s classroom supplies.
The loss of the building meant students were forced to continue their studies in a neighborhood house.
Hanson, a friend of Highstrom, was in contact with him and learned of the children’s predicament.
“The kids are the future of Iraq,” Highstrom said, adding that in order to give them the best shot at a better future, they needed some help in the present. Hanson’s class, as well as several American Legion associations in the area, mailed supplies for the platoon to deliver.
The delivery included paper, pens, pencils, backpacks, glue sticks, erasers and scissors.
“(The supplies are) standard stuff fifth graders need,” said Highstrom, a native of Cedarburg, Wis. “We thought about what we wanted when we were that age.”
While the children were pleased with the supplies, they will have to wait until the next school year to use them. Like children in America, Iraqi children have a three-month summer break between classes.
Although Battery B Soldiers will redeploy from the area before next school year starts, they have taken steps to ensure the upcoming year goes better than the last. To match the new school supplies, the Soldiers began working with Iraqi contractors to repair the damaged school building.
Contractors are also cleaning the building’s interior of debris from improvised explosive device detonations.
“The children need to be able to study in here,” said Hanni Shakur Hussein, a contractor from Yusifiyah. “We need to build the area for these kids’ future.”
It is a statement that Highstrom’s Soldiers agree with, even though their tour is almost complete.
“We got to give them something better,” said Spc. Ian Knight, from Terre Haute, Ind. “We got to give them a chance.”
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Don’t get me wrong, I am delighted to hear of these types of stories, but, when are we going to start hearing stories of the Department of Education of the Iraqi government, awash in oil money stepping up to the plate?
May 31st, 2008 at 8:53 pmAll very nice and well intentioned…while they chant behind our backs “Death to America”. That Jews and Christians are pigs and apes.
Funny thing, I never saw an ape or a pig offer anything but shit and piss to farmer. Whereas the infidels continue to offer aid, assistance, security and hope.
Allah-hu up yours pal. Where’s the Muslim crescent assoc? Or where is all that Saudi charity money? Oh that’s right it’s all sunk in the jihad against those same apes and pigs.
Freaking ingrates.
Bet you money, after we leave Iraq, these same people will chant for our demise. Only difference being, they’ll be a whole generation of doubters at first. When that generation dies off it will be business as per usual. Death to America and Death to Israel.
So long as Islam lives, hope dies a slow death.
May 31st, 2008 at 9:51 pmGood to see something positive about what our soldiers are doing for once, instead of the usual news drivel, biased or total lack of reporting on their part.
June 1st, 2008 at 6:07 amThis is the best way (other than complete irradication) to defeat terrorism….
No matter what they destroy, no matter what they damage, we come back the next hour and rebuild, bigger and better than before. Let them see that their efforts go in vain again, and again, and again because their enemy has a bigger heart, a bigger wallet, and a soul.
I can’t wait until the new WTC is up.
June 1st, 2008 at 7:26 am@Doc Holliday
1400 years of Islamic history shows that Islam has no heart, no soul and no working moral compass. All the good will in the world won’t change these blackards one iota.
Japan had a similar problem for many centuries. We didn’t change them with good will…it took two A-bombs to bring them into civilization.
The same will need to be done for Islam.
June 1st, 2008 at 7:33 am