Can you Help?

Just read an e-mail from Pierre Legrand at The Pink Flamingo Bar and Grill, one of the earliest members of the "Friends of MilBlogs" list. He passes on a letter he received from the very good folks at Operation Air Conditioner:

We are working hard to get air conditioners out to our troops in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom 2 and any donation you can make to us would be greatly appreciated. Please even $5, $10 or $20 is fine. We were able to do so much last summer for our troops and I would like to continue but we operate on donations and people just are sick of hearing about the war and have essentially stopped donating all together.

Emphasis added.

I don't know, Pierre. I've got a list of charity sites that includes Operation AC down the side of this blog. I get roughly 1-2 thousand visitors a day on weekdays, (depending on inbound links) but the respose to a simple request for words of encouragement to the troops a couple posts down has been somewhat underwhelming. Perhaps it's easier to donate a few bucks to charity than to write a few words. For many I'm sure that's true. I will now shamelessly bring out the guilthammer.

Here's an excerpt from a recent e-mail I sent this past week. Having read the above email and the one that prompted my morale posts in the first place, I realize that this really sums up the whole moment in time for me right now:

The Pentagon released results of a morale survey of troops in Iraq earlier this week. No surprise, they weren't overjoyed to be in Baghdad taking shots while trying to restore electricity. In contrast recent Iraqi opinion polls show the citizens consider themselves better off now, have hope for a brighter future, and would like the Army to leave as soon as that electricity is stable.

Meanwhile, a former US President says at a Democratic Party event celebrating the unofficial annointing of the heir apparent, that

"I am deeply concerned that our leadership today has been eroded by global doubts about our government's commitment to the basic principles of truth, peace and human rights," Carter said. "We see trust and friendship toward the United States at its lowest point in history."

"Respected human rights leaders no longer see our country as a noble example to be emulated, but as a focus of their almost universal condemnation."

Par for the course in a week that began with "anti-war" protests, moved to attempts to blame the president for 911, and saw anti-Bush demonstrators come to blows with the pro-Bush crowd. With over seven months to go to the elections, flames are being fanned.

This "low troop morale" story is really about the Pentagon taking steps to improve that number, but will of course be used by the folks responsible for the activities above as further evidence that they are in the right.

We are at war and troops are in harms way. Actions by people on the homefront do affect the troops overseas. People are aware of that, but it's becoming background noise, and it should never be ignored.

It may be corny but I guess I'm saying a little WWII-style home front patriotism isn't a bad thing - it did help defeat Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito after all. Funny that we shy away from such behavior now. If that's desirable then I guess that certain Vietnam-era testimony still has it's intended effect.

So give please, those who can.

Gotta shake the blues now. Regroup, recharge, press on.

It's what we do.