Beanie Baby Heaven

It’s incredible, the number of Beanie Babies I’ve received today. I was totally surprised when I opened the box. It was full of Beanie Babies. I only expected a few not so many. It was so cool! I know it’s gay but I had to keep a few for myself. I’m going to hand the rest of them out. I’m sure the little girls will love them. So I’d like to thank Paul and Danielle from Greenfield Indiana for donating so many Beanie Babies. I can’t imagine how much they must have been worth.

I also want to give another shot out to Dennis of Port Washington WI for the care package he and his local VFW put together. The guys were begging for some of those batteries that you sent. They’re like gold over here. I received that package more then a week ago but I’ve been so busy lately, I’ve been unable to give you thanks.

I also got a package from Operation Gratitude and the California Army National Guard, 746^th QM BN. I signed up for care package on their website www.operationgratitude.com a while back and finally received it in the mail. It was cool. It had some foot cream and power, which is dearly needed. They also packed a music CD, some snacks, and a few letters. There’s one I’d like to share here. A Ben Stein wrote it.

Dear Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, National Guardsmen and Reservists in Iraq, the Middle East theater, in Afghanistan, in the area near Afghanistan, in any base anywhere in the world, and your families:

Let me tell you about why you guys own about 90 percent of the cojones in the whole world right now and should be damned happy with yourselves and damned proud of who you are. It was a dazzlingly hot day here in Rancho Mirage today. I did small errands like going to the bank to pay my mortgage, finding a new bed at a price I can afford, practicing driving with my new 5 wood, paying bills for about two hours.

I spoke for a long time to a woman who is going through a nasty child custody fight. I got e-mails from a woman who was fired today from her job for not paying attention. I read about multi-billion-dollar mergers in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. I noticed how overweight I am, for the millionth time.

In other words, I did a lot of nothing. Like every other American who is not in the armed forces family, I basically just rearranged the deck chairs on the Titanic in my trivial, self-important, meaningless way.

Above all, I talked to a friend of more than forty-three years who told me he thought his life had no meaning because all he did was count his money.

And, friends in the armed forces, this is the story of all of America today. We are doing nothing but treading water while you guys carry on the life or death struggle against worldwide militant Islamic terrorism. Our lives are about nothing: paying bills, going to humdrum jobs, waiting until we can go to sleep and then do it all again. Our most vivid issues are trivia compared with what you do every day, every minute, every second.

Oprah Winfrey talks a lot about “meaning” in life. For her, “meaning” is dieting and then having her photo on the cover of her magazine every single month (surely a new world record for egomania). This is not “meaning”.

Meaning is doing for others. Meaning is risking your life for others. Meaning is putting your bodies and families’ peace of mind on the line to defeat some of the most evil, sick killers the world has ever known. Meaning is leaving the comfort of home to fight to make sure that there still will be a home for your family and for your nation and for free men and women everywhere.

Look, soldiers and Marines and sailors and airmen and Cost Guardsmen, there are eight billion people in this world. The whole fate of this world turns on what you people, 1.4 million, more or less, do every day. The fate of mankind depends on what about 2/100 of one percent of the people in this world do every day – and you are those people. And joining you is every policeman, fireman, and EMT in the country, also holding back the tide of chaos.

Do you know how important you are? Do you know how indispensable you are Do you know how humbly grateful any of us who has a head on his shoulders is to you?

Do you know that if you never do another thing in your lives, you will always still be heroes? That we could life without Hollywood or Wall Street or the NFL, but we cannot live for a week without you.

We are on our knees to you and we bless and pray for you every moment.

And Oprah Winfrey, if she were a size two, would not have one millionth of your importance and all of the Wall Street billionaires will never mean what the least of you do, and if Barry Bonds hit ninety home runs it would not mean as much as you going on one patrol or driving one truck to the Baghdad airport.

You are everything to us, as we go through our little days, and you are in the prayers of the nation and of every decent man and woman on the planet.

That’s who you are and what you mean. I hope you know that.