In the past two weeks, the world has witnessed the desecration of the bodies of American citizens in Iraq and seen the terrified faces of kidnap victims of Iraqi insurgents. On any given day, one can open the newspaper and see that some guy murdered his wife, a mother is lacking food in an urban ghetto or a study appears saying AIDS infection rates are skyrocketing.
I am a voracious news reader, and even I cannot take the saturation of violence and other depressing stories in the news any longer. People that I have contact with have a perception that the world is going down the toilet, but I believe it's not as bad as it may seem. This saturation of the news with violence and depressing stories is a mischaracterization of the world that is poisoning the minds of our children. They need to learn that for every bad and disheartening story, there are truly uplifting ones that go ignored every day. One of those stories starts right here at AU.
A friend of mine named Melanie, who attends AU, volunteers with children for the D.C. Reads program every Wednesday afternoon in Columbia Heights. During her time with these underprivileged children, she mentors them, reads to them and draws pictures with them, among other things.
"They're a tough crowd," she says about the children.
Many of the children don't care when she shows up, but a select few of them are delighted to see her. They shower her with drawings and tell her she is their favorite volunteer.
"It's very endearing," Melanie said.
Despite the difficulty of working with the children, she believes it's a good thing.
"You're there to make a difference," she said.
One memory that will always stick in Melanie's mind is the many times when one particular little girl drew pictures of Melanie and the little girl and then put both their names on the drawings. Melanie has kept those drawings as a memento of her work.
On the other side of the world is the story of a battle-hardened soldier who has gone through hell and back fighting for the freedom of people previously deprived of it.
On my bedroom wall at home hangs an Iraqi flag. This flag was given to me by a friend of mine who is an Army Civil Affairs Specialist. He has just returned from 15 months' deployment to Iraq and Kuwait. Every time I look at this flag, I think of how much hope I have for the future of the Iraqi children. What also comes to mind is a harrowing story told to me by my friend about almost being killed one day in Iraq.
On Sept. 9, 2003, my friend Kendrick was traveling in the back of a Humvee with his team and an Iraqi translator on a road between the towns of Baqubah and Elmasaria in Iraq. They were driving alongside a large wall when they heard explosions and saw two bright flashes above their heads, five feet away from the Humvee.
The flashes were grenades being tossed by Iraqi insurgents attacking Kendrick and his team from the top of the wall. They also fired their automatic rifles at Kendrick's team.
When Kendrick noticed how close they were, he used his grenade launcher to fire grenades and rifle rounds back at the insurgents. He never found out if he and his team killed the insurgents, but he was just happy to be out of the situation.
"The first thing I did when I stepped out of that vehicle was light up a cigarette," said Kendrick of the Iraqi assault. He then said to his teammate, "Did that just happen?"
His teammate responded with "Ya."
Kendrick said, "My God."
During his time in Iraq, Kendrick also witnessed two suicide bombings and a car bombing.
Yet many other happy things are happening now. A woman in Newton, Mass. who suffers from two auto-immune diseases and blindness will be running the Boston Marathon. Also, a friend of mine in Los Angeles took in an abandoned pitbull. If he hadn't, the pitbull would have been euthanized by the Los Angeles Police Department.
I'm sure we do not want to pass a completely violent outlook of the world to our children. By continuing to present the world as a wholly dark and scary place, we are raising children in a one-sided view of the world. This is a tremendous disservice to them.
