saturday spotlight: the red lion project

in march, i changed jobs. a long, long time ago, i worked for a weekly newspaper. after a couple of years, i got sick of doing that and went back to selling books. i got sick of doing that, and spent four years selling children's furniture and accessories. i got sick of doing that and went back to working at the newspaper because i found i missed the work.

the thing i most love about this work is the perks... like the time i got to meet cheech marin and free entrance to events like the woodlands waterway arts festival and the tomball crawfish festival and the much more expensive ymca's dancing with the woodlands stars. the best perk is the stories we discover.

like the one about six marines killed in afghanistan and the red lion project the father of one has orchestrated to honor them. the father is thomas logan. his son was named joseph. 

prior to departing on that fateful tour, joey had expressed an interest in buying some land with his dad in montana because he'd loved going fishing there with him. 

they couldn't do it together, but tom bought the land anyway. more than a hundred acres of serenity near the clark fork river, surrounded by three thousand square miles of national forest. a quiet respite, ideal for horseback riding, fishing, hiking, canoeing... or just relaxing and observing the wildlife.

the plan is to build six cabins, one for each of the fallen, to be used by soldiers and their families... to create a haven, a place to heal, reconnect and ease the stress of transitioning from the military life to a civil one.

for those of you who live in southeast texas and like to fish, the project is holding a catfish fundraiser on may ninth. the deadline to enter was the first. but maybe latecomers will be welcome. doesn't hurt to ask.

i'm not necessarily posting this to encourage people to go fish. my older brother would've been all about that... he would've rallied all his friends to participate. and they would've done it because he could convince anybody to do pretty much anything.

i'm writing because my family goes to northern utah every summer for a week to visit my munkle (i've a great uncle who's a monk, for those of you are new here... yes, there are monks in utah, though not for long). anyway... that's our haven. that's my heaven. and i know full well how wonderful having that respite is. 

i know full well how our soldiers could use a place like this. like the one tom logan and his friends are making. 

i'm writing this because i want to help him make his son's dream a reality. i want to help our wounded. if they're hurt, we mend their bodies and then we send them home where they have to fend for themselves. we can do better than that. they deserve better than that.

to donate, click here.