Guest Blog: Himself "Old Soldier"

This is something Himself wrote a few years back. I thought it was appropriate for Memorial Day.

Teri

I feel subdued today... No, thoughtful is more accurate.

Visited an old soldier today--one I hadn't seen since 1979; Command Sergeant Major Luis Esparza. Upon finishing up the SF training in '78, he was my first boss--one I didn't like, and one I set out to make his life miserable. I was SUPPOSED to go to a Special Forces A-Team, but for some reason I got stuck in a staff job at Battalion level...not something a certain Tall-Good-Looking-Hard-as-Steel-Green-Beret was SUPPOSED to be doing! Nope! I was meant for the coveted A-Team.

(All this from a 20 year old kid with one year in the service--me--doing this to a soldier who came into the army in 1949, was the highest rank an enlisted soldier could be, and who had two wars under his belt.)

With this attitude, I set out to do all sorts of little things to mess with him--like put my nearly 600 pounds of barbell weights in front of my clothes storage locker so he couldn't inspect it as Sergeant Majors do. My imagination for such juvenile things had no limits. Myself and my partner-in-crime Brad would get hauled into his office while the rest of the Battalion staff grew hushed, and we would then get our butts chewed--again. He would yell & yell, and end up with an animated, "Now, got OUT of here!!".

Such memories...

But as of late different memories come to mind. I thought back that after each well deserved chewing-out, if my retreating form happened to turnaround to glance back at him, I saw a much softened look about him usually accompanied with a slight smile. Then it hit me--tho I suppose he had full rights to throw me out of his unit, he was somewhat fond of me despite all my youthful arrogance, and perhaps he was remembering another young solder of 1949. And then it hit me...

...he cares.

Caring can go both ways. Thru the old SF soldier list I found out that now70 year old CSM Esparza had a quadruple bypass surgery recently. Tho from North Carolina he had surgery in Nashville and recovering at his daughter's home here in Clarksville. Then a strange thing happened--the Lord whispered in my heart, "Go see him". I thought, "ME?!" Why, he won't even remember me. And if he does, unless senility has set in he will remember what a PITA (pain-in-the-...) I was. But the heart-felt thought wouldn't leave. So I did see him today...and when I walked into his daughter's home, I was greeted with a--"Oh, I remember YOU!"

Didn't know whether to continue into that home or turn around and RUN!

After that? I sat down and visited with a whole new perspective. Here was a man a fraction of his former size and presence--brought on by a number of ailments that age and diabetes can cause. But in this old soldiers eyes I still saw something larger. Something from before.

Now that we were both retired, I suppose that make us equals. But ya know, a part of me still felt young--like I didn't know anything compared to this man who has been thru so much. 3 hours later we were still trading pictures and stories and memories and, well...life. And when I left this time? I got a different type of send-off...

..."Come back again sometime..."

That meant the world to me. And I will.

D.

PS--The A-Teams came later--after some much needed lessons and growing up of a certain young soldier. Once again, in God's perfect timing, He put me where I needed to be. Maybe for both of us...

A Hero for Today: Hector Mendez

Just one of so very many heroes in Haiti right now.


Rescuer was woman's last hope in Haiti: 'We told her we won't leave'
By Moni Basu, CNN
January 28, 2010 8:13 p.m. EST


Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) -- A sweet sadness blankets Hector Mendez's face, appropriate, perhaps, for a middle-age man who has seen suffering and miracles at once.

Many other rescuers have left the Haitian capital, no hope left in their hearts 15 long days after the massive earthquake that ravaged this country and entombed so many in the rubble.

But not Mendez.

Every day for more than a week, he has stepped down into the dark crevices of a destroyed building to look for two people: Daniel Varese and his 4-year-old son Mateo.

Mateo's mother, Marylinda Gonzalez Davi, a United Nations employee from Guatemala who has been living in Haiti for four years, was at work when the earth shook violently on January 12. Rescuers pulled her 1-year-old daughter Fabiana alive from the rubble, but there was no sign of her husband and son. She refused to believe they were dead.

Word of her plight reached Mendez, who had arrived in Port-au-Prince with a team of 25 Mexican rescue workers.

"We told her we won't leave. We will stay by her side," Mendez said. He has a grandchild the same age as Mateo.

His orange jumpsuit dulled by dust, Mendez and his crew made camp adjacent to the rubble of the landmark Hotel Montana. They slept out in the open, with Gonzalez and her friend. They took short naps to re-energize. Then they went back in to search.

Each day, they pulled things from the place that Gonzalez called home: a stuffed animal, her husband's computer, a piece of carpet. It helped Mendez to know what room of the apartment they had entered.

He kept moving, deeper and deeper. In search of smell. In search of the slightest sound. Of an infant's whimper, a man's weak cry for help.

Mendez became convinced father and son might be alive. He knows well the science of rescue after doing it for a quarter century.

"There is no smell," he said. And that could mean they were alive.

Even two weeks after the earth shook, people were being rescued. Each gave Gonzalez hope. And that propelled Mendez.

He believes in the power of love. The strong bonds between a man and his child, trapped together. That link, he thought, could be enough to sustain them.

A veteran of many disasters

After a killer earthquake struck his hometown of Mexico City in 1985, Mendez, 46, felt a need to give back the humanitarian gestures extended to his own people. He joined a team called the Topos, or moles, named so because the rescuers wriggled through the deepest darkest corners in search of life.

He volunteered to rush to disasters: to Indonesian quakes, five times; to Latin American countries; to Iran, Turkey, India and Egypt; to New Orleans, Louisiana, after Hurricane Katrina and to New York after the 2001 terror attacks.

Haiti, he said, is one of the worst situations he has seen. "People are very, very poor here." Much of the infrastructure and construction was so shoddy. This was the first time government officials paid for his flight. Usually, he finds his own way.

And that has left him penniless and jobless.

"Who will hire this old man now?" he asked. "People tell me I am mad."

He does the work because he loves to help people. "It's worth it to find one person alive."

Behind him, the incessant sound of a jackhammer deafened the ear. Above him, the roar of jets taking off from the airport. But it was below where Mendez belonged.

Time was ticking.

Sometimes, in the darkness, when he was crawling like a mole, the earth trembled. "Replica! Replica!" some of his men shouted. There was always the fear that whatever was left standing would tumble in the many aftershocks this city has felt.

"We laugh," he said. "We don't scream like ladies. There is nothing you can do inside. You only die once. It would be an honor to die in the rubble."

From other people, the statement might seem trite. But Mendez's eyes make you believe. He is called Chino because people say he looks Chinese. He says he has the look of a fierce Mexican Indian.

After so many days, Mendez was running on two hours sleep -- and hope. But late Wednesday his search finally ended. His men found two bodies buried deep in the apartment.

Mateo was in his father's arms.

In Haiti, Mendez had hoped for a miracle. Instead, he saw more suffering. This, too, will define the curves of his face.

Heroes for Today: Football team of Maryville, MO high school

Here is a whole bunch of heroes - the players of the Maryville, MO high school football team. Let's hope they remember into adulthood how good it felt to do this. It might have changed some of their lives...


His team trailing 46-0, Matt Ziesel scored a touchdown.

Matt Ziesel, a freshman on the St. Joseph Benton High School football team, has Down's Syndrome, and so hasn't played an any of the actual games, never mind scored a touchdown... until now. St. Joseph Benton coach Dan McCamy 's team had the ball but were losing 46-0 when he approached opponent Maryville High School's defensive coach David McEnaney, asking Maryville to let Matt Zeisel, a 5'3", 110-lb running back, score a touchdown. Demonstrating great sportsmanship, Maryville agreed, and the moment is captured here in all its video glory: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ylwXOxKb7I

As he headed across the field to talk to McEnaney, McCamy wasn’t sure what the reaction would be. He asked the players to avoid physical contact with Ziesel but to make it as real as possible for him.

“The (Maryville) players, they didn’t hesitate at all,” McEnaney said. “They jumped right on board.”

A Hero for Today: Efren Peñaflorida - CNN Hero of the Year

CAVITE CITY, Philippines (CNN) -- At 16, Rhandolf Fajardo reflects on his former life as a gang member.

"My gang mates were the most influential thing in my life," says Fajardo, who joined a gang when he was in sixth grade. "We were pressured to join."

He's not alone. In the Philippines, teenage membership in urban gangs has surged to an estimated 130,000 in the past 10 years, according to the Preda Foundation, a local human rights charity.

"I thought I'd get stuck in that situation and that my life would never improve," recalls Fajardo. "I would probably be in jail right now, most likely a drug addict -- if I hadn't met Efren."

Efren Peñaflorida, 28, also was bullied by gangs in high school. Today, he offers Filipino youth an alternative to gang membership through education.

"Gang members are groomed in the slums as early as 9 years old," says Peñaflorida. "They are all victims of poverty."

For the past 12 years, Peñaflorida and his team of teen volunteers have taught basic reading and writing to children living on the streets. Their main tool: A pushcart classroom.

Stocked with books, pens, tables and chairs, his Dynamic Teen Company recreates a school setting in unconventional locations such as the cemetery and municipal trash dump.

Peñaflorida knows firsthand the adversity faced by these children. Born into a poor family, he lived in a shanty near the city dump site. But he says he refused to allow his circumstances to define his future.

"Instead of being discouraged, I promised myself that I would pursue education," he recalls. "I will strive hard; I will do my best."

In high school, Peñaflorida faced a new set of challenges. Gang activity was rampant; they terrorized the student body, vandalized the school and inducted members by forcing them to rape young girls, he says.

"I felt the social discrimination. I was afraid to walk down the street."

Peñaflorida remembers standing up to a gang leader, refusing to join his gang. That confrontation proved fateful. At 16, he and his friends "got the idea to divert teenagers like us to be productive," he says.

He created the Dynamic Teen Company to offer his classmates an outlet to lift up themselves and their community. For Peñaflorida, that meant returning to the slums of his childhood to give kids the education he felt they deserved.

"They need education to be successful in life. It's just giving them what others gave to me," he says.

Today, children ranging from ages 2 to 14 flock to the pushcart every Saturday to learn reading, writing, arithmetic and English from Peñaflorida and his trained teen volunteers.

Our volunteers serve as an inspiration to other children," he says.

The group also runs a hygiene clinic, where children can get a bath and learn how to brush their teeth.

Since 1997, an estimated 10,000 members have helped teach more than 1,500 children living in the slums. The organization supports its efforts by making and selling crafts and collecting items to recycle.

Through his group, Peñaflorida has successfully mentored former gang members, addicts and dropouts, seeing potential where others see problems.

"Before, I really didn't care for my life," says Michael Advincula, who started doing drugs when he was 7. "But then Efren patiently dug me from where I was buried. It was Efren who pushed me to get my life together."

Today, Advincula is a senior in high school and one of the group's volunteers.

Peñaflorida hopes to expand the pushcart to other areas, giving more children the chance to learn and stay out of gangs.

"I always tell my volunteers that you are the change that you dream and I am the change that I dream. And collectively we are the change that this world needs to be."

A Hero for Today: Pemba Gyalje Sherpa

The savior and the storm on K2

Heroism: Pemba Gyalje Sherpa

Text by Christian DeBenedetti
Photograph by Daniel Pepper

On August 1, 2008, at just about 8 p.m., a massive serac cleaved from a glacier near the summit of K2, the world's second highest mountain, and barreled down a section of the Cesen climbing route called the Bottleneck. In an instant, one climber was dead, key safety lines were swept away, and 17 climbers were trapped above 27,000 feet with little chance of escape.

In the days ahead, the disaster on K2 would become one of the deadliest mountaineering incidents in history, leaving 11 victims in its wake. The tragedy would shake modern mountaineering to its core. And it would yield a hero, Pemba Gyalje Sherpa.

Pemba, 34, and three members of his Norit K2 team—leader Wilco van Rooijen, Marco Confortola, and Gerard McDonnell—reached the Bottleneck minutes after the serac fell. Rather than face a dangerous descent in total darkness, Pemba's three teammates decided to bivouac for the night. At 27,000 feet the temperatures would reach minus 40ºF. Pemba, a seven-time Everest veteran, knew the dangers of the death zone. He chose instead to descend the Bottleneck alone, without oxygen, picking his way down the 60-degree couloir guided by a single tattered safety line that had survived the avalanche. He reached Camp IV by 1 a.m. His teammates, he assumed, would be down at first light.

By daybreak on August 2, chaos reigned. More than a dozen climbers were missing or dead, and the weather had worsened considerably. Van Rooijen had staggered away from the team, desperate to get down by a different route, and soon became hopelessly lost. McDonnell had wandered back uphill, apparently confused. Frostbitten and delirious, Confortola had climbed partway down the Bottleneck, unable to remember how he'd done it. Just before he passed out from altitude sickness, a second avalanche swept toward him carrying McDonnell's mangled corpse.

With his team in shambles, Pemba had to act fast. He heard over the radio that Confortola had been spotted midway up the Bottleneck. "I thought, OK, if we are lucky, I can rescue Marco," Pemba says. So he began to climb, soloing through swirling snow up the couloir. "It was very scary, but I knew Marco was still alive," he says. "I could not turn back."

When Pemba reached Confortola some hours later, the Italian was in bad shape, unconscious and suffering from severe altitude sickness. Somehow Pemba managed to revive him with oxygen and guide him to the base of the Bottleneck. At that moment another slide roared from above, this time carrying the bloodied bodies of two Sherpas and two Korean climbers. A chunk of falling ice blasted Confortola in the back of the head. Dazed, the Italian began to slip. "I was falling," he told a reporter. "The avalanche would have taken me away. But Pemba grabbed me from behind. He was holding my neck. He saved my life."

By the time the pair made it to Camp IV, Pemba was shattered, collapsing into his tentfor a few hours' sleep. When he woke that evening, he got word that van Rooijen, the lost Norit K2 leader, was still alive. He had to go out again.

After a night alone in the open with no water and no ice ax, van Rooijen had been presumed dead. Then, unexpectedly, he called his wife on his satellite phone. Using the call data, the Norit K2 team fixed his location on the mountain's South Face, far from any known routes.

Armed with only rough coordinates, Pemba, along with another survivor, Cas van de Gevel, struck into terra incognita, picking across avalanche-prone terrain at night. After searching for hours, the pair decided to resume the next day. They finally found van Rooijen in the late afternoon by following the sound of his ringing cell phone. The three men staggered into Camp III well after dark, on August 3, exhausted but alive.

In the weeks after the tragedy, Pemba returned to his Kathmandu home, far from the horrors he'd just witnessed. You'd think that after such an experience, he would never want to climb again, soured forever. But Pemba has no such plans. He'll be back in the mountains, he says, by the time next season rolls around. Thank goodness. Climbing needs more heroes like him.

A Hero for Today: Ashley Clements of World Vision

Dynamo in the Disaster Zone
Humanitarian Work: Ashley Clements
Text by Lucas Pollock
Photograph by Justyna Mielnikiewicz

The cyclone-ravaged Irrawaddy Delta in Myanmar. Iraqi refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon. Georgia after the Russian invasion. These are not destinations most people seek out. But Ashley Clements is not like most people.

As an emergency coordination specialist for U.S.-based World Vision, Clements, 27, is the aid world's equivalent of a first responder. He shuttles into emerging disaster zones, often ahead of other humanitarian groups and mainstream press, to scout situations, drum up global support with photos and video, and get aid flowing in the right directions. Then he rolls up his shirtsleeves.

In Myanmar, Clements arrived to a land leveled by storm, with an estimated 130,000 dead or missing. Among the ruins, he interviewed orphaned children and fought to reunite them with relatives, however distant, before they were placed in the state's corrupt and squalid facilities. In Jordan, he photographed Iraqi refugees, specifically children, for CNN and the BBC. "I reached 125 million people with[a single] image," he says—an effort that helped integrate thousands of refugee kids into Jordanian schools. In Georgia, Clements touched down before the bullets stopped flying, to assist the 80,000 or so Ossetian and Georgian refugees who had fled to Tbilisi. There he prepped them for winter, handing out blankets and helping to establish cooking facilities, which delivered food to some 25,000 people. There were other disasters in 2008, of course—Darfur and China, to name just two—and other aid workers doing miraculous work. But in terms of sheer global reach and tireless advocacy, few can match Ashley Clements.