Despite many problems facing our nation at home and abroad, we Americans do have a great deal to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving Day. We are living in the most technologically advanced, free and open society that has ever existed. Our entrepreneurial culture has produced incredible advances in medicine, telecommunications and virtually every other area of human endeavor.
But none of this would have been possible were it not for the stalwart defenders of liberty who, generation after generation, bravely marched off to battle beneath the Stars and Stripes. Our debt to them can never be repaid.
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. Project Valour IT raises money to purchase voice-activated laptops for wounded service members returning home from Afghanistan and Iraq. Nearly 600 laptops have already been distributed to patients recuperating at the nation’s military hospitals, including Walter Reed Army Medical Center here in Washington. The Military Order of the Purple Heart has also extended the laptop program to forgotten veterans from previous wars who would benefit from having a voice-activated computer. Every cent raised goes directly to the purchase and shipment of laptops to severely wounded soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.
The project began after tank company Commander Capt. Charles “Chuck” Ziegenfuss was seriously wounded by an improvised-explosive device in Iraq in June 2005. Hand injuries made it particularly difficult for him to type for the blog he started while he was deployed. A devoted reader of Ziegenfuss’ milblog sent him a copy of voice-to-text software, and he realized that other wounded soldiers could also benefit from the technology. Thus Project Valour IT was born.
Ziegenfuss is the son of the late William V. Ziegenfuss, a career Army medic who served in Vietnam and was later given a medical discharge after developing a digestive tract cancer due to his exposure to Agent Orange. One of the older man’s last expressions of generosity, his son fondly recalls, was distributing his extensive video collection to other veterans in the cancer ward.
“I know how humbling it is, how humiliating it feels,” Ziegenfuss has written about being incapacitated. “And I know how much better I felt, how amazingly more functional I felt, after Soldiers’ Angels (soldiersangels.org) provided me with a laptop.”
The Army Times reports that a “friendly but fierce” competition among Internet bloggers that began Oct. 30 has raised more than $186,000 for this cause. The “Marine” team hauled in more than $51,000, followed by the “Army” and “Navy,” which both raised more than $47,000, with the “Air Force” in the rear with $40,000. The amount is almost double what was raised during a similar effort last year, but the need is still great. More than 22,000 Americans have come home wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan. Many face extensive recoveries and uncertain futures.
It’s fitting that our wounded soldiers benefit from the technological fruits of a society they have so willingly and courageously volunteered to defend. If you want to thank the troops for their service this Thanksgiving Day, contributing to Project Valour IT is a good way to show it.
