And I am thankful that this post was able to help you get to another place, one in which you could feel the love, compassion, and yes, even heartache, for this country, and those who serve it, including your two precious children. They ARE heroes, and it says so much abt you and Ferd that both of your children are serving their country this way.

Absolutely beautiful, powerful, quote from Ponca Chief White Eagle. Thank you for that, Katmoon.

I know you know that even with the one dimensional aspect of the internet, that the wonderful people who come here most certainly are not one dimensional. We bring our full humanity here, and to each other. It is hard with so much crap going on constantly with our government to remember that there is a lot more going on in the world, and that WE are so much more than the political junkies.

In this case, with this post, it is a moment of gratitude to those among us who chose to live a life of service we hold up, and hold close. They are too often forgotten by too many in this country.

Thank you again for your lovely words, Katmoon. You are a special person indeed.

KARZAI: THE STORY THE MEDIA DOESN’T TELL YOU

According to Afghan, Iranian, and Turkish government sources, Hamid Karzai, the interim Prime Minister of Afghanistan, was a top adviser to the El Segundo, California-based UNOCAL Corporation which was negotiating with the Taliban to construct a Central Asia Gas (CentGas) pipeline from Turkmenistan through western Afghanistan to Pakistan. Karzai, the leader of the southern Afghan Pashtun Durrani tribe, was a member of the mujaheddin that fought the Soviets during the 1980s. He was a top contact for the CIA and maintained close relations with CIA Director William Casey, Vice President George Bush, and their Pakistani Inter Service Intelligence Service interlocutors.

Later, Karzai and a number of his brothers moved to the United States under the auspices of the CIA. Karzai continued to serve the agency’s interests, as well as those of the Bush Family and their oil friends in negotiating the CentGas deal, according to Middle East and South Asian sources. When one peers beyond all of the rhetoric of the White House and Pentagon concerning the Taliban, a clear pattern emerges showing that construction of the trans-Afghan pipeline was a top priority of the Bush administration from the outset. Although UNOCAL claims it abandoned the pipeline project in December 1998, the series of meetings held between U.S., Pakistani, and Taliban officials after 1998, indicates the project was never off the table.

I cannot thank you enough for this post, and the general well being it provided for me. I signed up, posted to Facebook, became a member all of the above, after I cried from watching the video, Here’s to the Heroes. I am thanking you specifically for helping me get those tears going, I needed them. I was so angry Sunday from reading the post and coping with Presidential abandonment issues over Afghanistan and our soldiers.
The tears helped me feel something stronger than that anger, which is the love of my country and our soldiers.
The tears never fail to teach, and remind me what I hold dear, what is worthy of my heartbreak and what is insignificant.

SO Rev Amy, you brought a rare form of ministry forward(compassion, empathy and understanding) in this flat dimension of the internet, and it touched me. I needed that and I needed the tears. You stand very tall Rev Amy, with kinds hand and a beautiful heart.

Go Forward With Courage

When you are in doubt, be still, and wait;
when doubt no longer exists for you, then go forward with courage.
So long as mists envelop you, be still;
be still until the sunlight pours through and dispels the mists
– as it surely will.
Then act with courage.

Ponca Chief White Eagle (1800′s to 1914)

Thank you so much, Rev. Amy

Has anyone every told you that you would make THE best Secretary of Human Services America has ever had??

Thanks so much for another stirring post. Your presentations always cause me to laugh, cry or ponder deeply. You change people lives with your wonderful stories.

That is so cool abt adopting the dogs from Iran. DO you mind telling me/us how you went abt that?

Holy smokes abt the brother on his third tour. Good grief. I cannot even begin to imagine the toll this is taking on him (his family, too). Wow…

Loved the story. Thanks so much!

I signed the pledge. Thanks for the nice post.

My husband and I had a nice chat yesterday with an Iraq War vet. He stopped to pet our big, very spoiled Iranian rescue dogs as we sat outside of Starbucks while the dogs ate most of our pumpkin bread. We told him how dogs from Iran got to us because he had seen first hand how dogs are treated in that part of the world (He has a pit bull and a spaniel).

He had been in the big push to take the airport at the opening of the war, was there twice but finally sent home with injuries–lost part of a thunb. He’s doing well now and has a job he loves.

I think of the brother of my son’s girlfriend, there for the third time and waiting to come home in December, which was later than they originally said he could.

These kids need our support, no doubt about it.

signed it and put it up on facebook like requested!

W00T!!