050709 Don's Zoo and Blood Donation

050709 Don's Zoo and Blood Donation

Up to about a year ago the hospital here at Balad was still in tents.
The tents were pretty big but still they were tents (think MASH 4077).
The new hospital is a metal building complete with a second roof for
mortar protection. They treat all sorts of patients here including
local Iraqis. I used to do some volunteering there but after a few
trips when they had nothing for me to do I stopped going.
Every now and then the hospital also has blood drives. I find it
ironic that when I'm in the states I cannot give blood at an Army
blood drive since I've been in Iraq. But in Iraq they WILL take my
blood - go figure.
Any way, a co-worker recently left Iraq for stateside and he left all
his damn stuffed animals for us (gee thanks). Any way, what to do
with all these damn things? The answer was to donate them and send
corporate a Good Will story. I drafted up the story, slapped on a pic
and have copied here below.
=======================================================================================================
Don's Zoo Has a Second Life
After 4½ years as the site lead at Joint Base Balad, Don left Iraq
recently to return stateside and pursue other opportunities with
Stanley Associates in Virginia. Now after 4½ years anywhere, one
generally accumulates lots of 'stuff' and part of this stuff was Don's
zoo. You see, the Mrs. had (over the years) sent stuffed animals that
with the click of a button would play a melody. From a lion singing
'In the Jungle' to a trio of penguins singing 'rock around the clock',
the animals would entertain visitors in the Stanley-Iraq office. So
when Don left Iraq, he left his 'zoo' here to be donated to the 332nd
Medical Group field hospital. The 332nd routinely treats local Iraqi
children for everything from burns to serious life threatening
conditions. A stuffed fuzzy animal and a smile can help transcend the
language barrier to start a young patient on a successful road to
recovery. The stuffed animals were delivered to the hospital by
Stanley Associates employees Tom, James and Chris. The toys were
warmly received by the staff and later distributed to 4 young Iraqi
patients. We were later informed that the kids were delighted to each
receive two stuffed animals and even more delighted to discover that
each played a song! How many times CAN a young Iraqi patient
listen to 'In the Jungle'? Evidently the answer is 'a lot'!
=======================================================================================================