The Wheelchair Story....

Ok, here’s the end of the story. I started telling people about the wheelchairs that my unit has been lugging around since we launched out of Ft. McCoy a while back. I got this note from my nephew Paul Murphy, stationed up on the Syrian border with the 43rd Combat Engineers, attached to the 3rd Air Calvary Regiment:

There are four children that live in the household. The boys were born and raised in Biaj Iraq, and they were both born paralyzed. They were triplets, but one of the boys died. One of the boys can't go to school due to the lack of another wheelchair and his paralysis also contributes to this.

The twin boy’s names are Abdil Ilh and Abdil Vinhmih (13 yrs old). The father’s name is Mihmed and the Mother’s name is Kivmi.

And then this came in, from his Dad (my Brother, Pat):

Hi All! Please take a moment and see what happens when a few people put their heads together to make something positive happen in a world that sees very little of it.

Some of you that are receiving this had no prior knowledge but this "mission" has been going on for the past few months. It started with our youngest son, Paul noticing two boys that were paralyzed dragging themselves around their village in the dirt since there was no money for wheel chairs.

On a call home Paul mentioned it and I sent out an email to a bunch of people. Alan J. in Duluth, MN mentioned it to his daughter. Kirsten happens to be in a position to have access to the wheel chairs you will see in the pictures. They were donated FREE so that we could somehow get them to Iraq and Paul.

FREE turned out to be pretty expensive but my brother Tim was deploying to Iraq as well so I twisted his arm and he got them shipped with his equipment and his unit, they’re now in Balad.

This whole deal was Paul's idea. Here's a 21 yr. old from Mankato, Minnesota, looking at a couple of kids that have less than nothing and asking for nothing. It is the way it is. They have no real future but for the idea that maybe somebody back home can figure out a way to do this. At one point when things were moving a little slow on this project, Paul told us to take the money out his account and just buy them.

Kind of makes his parents proud.....

Pat & Connie

And a Happy Thanksgiving to all of you, too.