Welcome To

Family Story Site Map

Your Inspiration Connection
brought to you by Amerigate Resources 

• A Story to Ponder
• Never Judge a Book by its Cover
• First-hand Report from Baghdad

A woman was at work when she received a phone call that her daughter was very sick with a fever. She left her work and stopped by the pharmacy to get some medication for her daughter. When returning to her car, she found that she had locked her keys in the car. She was in a hurry to get home to her sick daughter and didn't know what to do. So, she called home, told the baby sitter what had happened, and that she did not know what to do.

The baby sitter told her that her daughter was getting worse. She said, "You might find a coat hanger and use that to open the door." The woman looked around and found an old rusty coat hanger that had been thrown down on the ground possibly by someone else who at some time or other had locked their keys in their car. Then, she looked at the hanger and said, "I don't know how to use this." So, she bowed her head and asked God to send her some help.

Within five minutes, an old rusty car pulled up with a dirty, greasy, bearded man who was wearing an old biker skull rag on his head. The woman thought, "Lord, this is what You sent to help me?"

But, she was desperate, so she was thankful. The man got out of his car and asked her if he could help. She said, "Yes, my daughter is very sick. I stopped to get her some medication and I locked my keys in my car. I must get home to her. Please, can you use this hanger to unlock my car."

He said, "Sure". He walked over to the car and, in less than one minute, the car was opened. She hugged the man and through her tears she said, "Thank you so much! You are a very nice man."

The man replied, "Lady, I am not a nice man. I just got out of prison today. I was in prison for car theft and have only been out for about an hour."

The woman hugged the man again and with sobbing tears cried out loud, "Oh, thank You, God! You even sent me a Professional!"

A lady in a faded gingham dress and her husband, dressed in a homespun, threadbare suit, stepped off the train in Boston. They walked timidly, without an appointment, into the Harvard University President's outer office. The secretary could tell in a moment that such "backwoods", country "hicks" had no business at Harvard and probably didn't even deserve to be in Cambridge.

"We want to see the President," the man said softly. "He'll be busy all day," the secretary snapped. "We'll wait," the lady replied.

For hours, the secretary ignored them, hoping that the couple would finally become discouraged and go away. They didn't and the secretary grew frustrated. Finally, she decided to disturb the President, even though it was a chore she always regretted. "Maybe if you see them for a few minutes, they'll leave," she said to him.

He sighed in exasperation and nodded. Someone of his importance obviously didn't have the time to spend with them, but he detested gingham dresses and homespun suits cluttering up his outer office even more. The President, stern faced and with dignity, strutted toward the couple.

The lady told him, "We had a son who attended Harvard for one year. He loved Harvard. He was happy here. But, about a year ago, he was accidentally killed. My husband and I would like to erect a memorial to him, somewhere on campus."

The President wasn't touched....he was shocked! "Madam," he said gruffly. "We can't put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and died. If we did, this place would look like a cemetery."

"Oh, no," the lady explained quickly. "We don't want to erect a statue. We thought we would like to give a building to Harvard."

The President rolled his eyes. He glanced at the gingham dress and homespun suit, and then exclaimed, "A building! Do you have any earthly idea how much a building costs? We have over seven and a half million dollars in the physical buildings here at Harvard."

For a moment, the lady was silent. The President was pleased. Maybe he could get rid of them now. The lady turned to her husband and said quietly, "Is that all it costs to start a university? Why don't we just start our own?" Her husband nodded.

The President's face wilted in confusion and bewilderment.

Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford got up and walked away, traveling to Palo Alto, California where they established the University that bears their name, Stanford University, as a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about.

You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those whom they think can do nothing.

"Hey Everyone!

Just wanted to check in and say 'Hello' and tell you that everything is fine here in Al Hillah, Iraq (Babylon). I am living right near the ruins of Babylon and got a chance to walk through the ruins and check the place out. It is amazing to see the history that has been bottled up here for 30 years or more. I actually was in 'Daniel's lions den'. Also got to see the famous lion of Babylon.

Today, the Marines re-dedicated a WWI British cemetery that had been trashed by the regime. There are UK soldiers buried there from the Al Kut battle in WWI and from Gallipoli. There is even a headstone with the name "Harry Potter." The regime had destroyed a cross and a local resident had a picture of it from 1972; he gave it to the Seabees who rebuilt it for the dedication. They are mostly reservists and all great at what they do. The Iraqi people were also very happy to help and said that they liked the cemetery as it was once a nice, peaceful place and now it's back to good condition. Up until 2 weeks ago, it was being used as a trash dump.

Still miss Beth and the kids something fierce and can't wait to get home. We are hearing that I will be leaving here in mid-June. Have also started receiving packages from folks and I can't tell you how awesome that is. I would not send anymore at this point or they will be getting returned to me back in the states by the time they get out here. We've got a fresh supply of baby wipes and corn nuts (and power bars thanks to my father in law and Rita.)!

Also wanted to give you all straight scoop on the efforts going on here. The Marines and Army have made great strides in maintaining order and making this place stable again despite what you read in the press. As we know, some of them like to concentrate on the 'conflict' angle and like to report bad news because it sells, but I can tell you I honestly see good things everyday. The people of Iraq are generally happy that we are here. I drove to Najaf and Karbala the other day and people were coming out of their homes to wave to us and the kids all line the streets and say 'GOOD MISTAH!'. Interestingly enough, I was with Carl D., an old classmate at AU. I went to Najaf to see Dick W., another classmate of mine, but he was off on a mission. While there, I ran into a guy I went to EWS with and an old TBS classmate, so I'm never far from friends around this place.

There is a lot of work to be done and I read alot of stuff in my job that has press reports of people protesting and wanting us to leave, but in the Marine AO, I can tell you that people are glad to have us here. We are training up their local police forces, trying to work with the good ones and flush out the bad ones. Things are improving on that front. The food situation is really good and people have enough food and water. There is actually a train heading north to our area with 800K metric tons of food - talk about a big dinner. The crops here are about to be harvested and that is good too - date palms were recently sprayed and farmers have water in their fields. We are coordinating with all kinds of non-Government agencies, who don't necessarily like to associate themselves with the military, unless they need security. They are doing good work here too. They assessed all our areas 'permissive' which means more agencies can come in and work with reasonable expectation that it is safe. Schools are getting back to normal and hospitals are working. Flights have arrived with food and some of them were commercial. Marines ate breakfast with a local school that wanted to show their appreciation. People seem generally relaxed and working toward fixing things.

I think whatever protesters are around are old regime supporters who are mad they don't get free stuff from Saddam anymore. Gas is still an issue, but we're trying to fix that too. People wait in lines for gas, but they have it and buses are taking people where they need to go. It doesn't help that their own people looted most of the power grids and public utilities, but we're fixing that too. Schools and universities are getting back to business and power is steadily resuming. Interestingly, some areas are better than before and alot of the breakdown in services happened before we even got here. One town had all 16 garbage trucks stripped of parts, but the Marines and Seabees are fixing them up so that trash can be collected. When you think of all the things that make a country run down to water and garbage, we've made HUGE progress in getting things back on track, so listen to the media with an eye of caution. Most of the media have not come down to the Marine AO because there is no bad news. Today a little girl was brought to the gate. She was 2 and recently had a hernia operation that had gone bad. We took her in and MEDEVAC'd her and her family to receive treatment. Those little things are the things that never make the news. Little by little things are getting better and you can be so proud of the young Marines and sailors that are out here making things happen instead of criticizing from back in the states. So that's what's going on here from the horses mouth.

Hit me with any questions you have and I'll be glad to answer them if I can. And if you hear people talking bad about what the US is doing now, think about how hard it would be in your town to restore order. These folks are on track. Imagine, less than a month ago, there was a war! I'm looking forward to coming home and relaxing with the family. I miss all you guys and look forward to this summer.

Take care!

Semper Fi Neil"