Published: February 15, 2008 01:05 pm         

Acts of kindness

Kindness is not a lost art. This I found to be true from my experience interviewing people who practice kindness on a regular basis.

This month I interviewed a group of sweet women from Soldier, Kentucky. These women are Eva Bailey, Joann Conley and Bernice Lawson. They are citizens who helped keep the military philanthropy Soldier to Soldier going. Their work consists of collecting donations for care packages for overseas military men and women. Their mission is to get the message to soldiers that they are not forgotten and prayed for.

As I remember from history, the men who fought in the Vietnam Conflict were not honored for fighting in the war. I learned that many were spit on and chastised for their involvement in the conflict. In my opinion, soldiers should be honored. It should not matter whether we agree with the war or not.

They are laying their lives down for us. I do not know about you, but I think that it is an extraordinary thing for someone to be willing to sacrifice his or her life just so that I can have freedom. They leave their families, their friends, their jobs and everything that is familiar to protect our country. If that is not worth commending these fine individuals, I do not know what is. They chose to do this for us and the least we can do is be grateful for it.

Over the weekend, I was watching ABC’s Extreme Makeover. The segment was about helping this marine soldier who had lost his leg in battle and before going home, he died twice and was brought back with the help of his marine brothers.

Someone contacted the Extreme Makeover studio and requested that this man’s home be rebuilt from the ground up. This man wore a prosthetic leg and the house he and his children shared was too small and cramped. Not to mention, it had rickety basement stairs that were extremely dangerous for him to walk on.

When the people at Extreme Makeover caught wind of the wounded soldier’s story, they were more than eager to help. Needless to say, the television crew arrived at the man’s home. They interviewed him and his children. Then they looked at the house. They saw the terrible condition it was in and decided to scrap the whole house. They sent the family on vacation and put them up in a Hilton Hotel in California for a week. Then the demolition began.

As the reconstruction of the home was going on, the television crew sent the family to a Hannah Montana concert. The crew knew that the soldier’s girls wanted to go to one of her concerts. After the concert they were able to meet Miley Cyrus (aka Hannah Montana) back stage.

The television crew and some fellow marine buddies helped with the reconstruction of the family’s home. To make a long story short, the family came home and was tickled. There was a special Marine celebration that took place for their homecoming. The house was beautiful and more accessible for the soldier and his family to live and work in.

Watching the show brought tears to my eyes. All I could think about was how wonderful it was to see a group of people get together to help someone else who is in need. I was especially glad to see a soldier get the help because he sacrificed a part of his body to protect my freedom and my life.

I encourage everyone to thank a soldier when you see one. If it wasn’t for the guys and gals overseas, we wouldn’t have the freedom of speech or the freedom of press or the freedom to do whatever we want. Soldiers need to know that we appreciate them.