Pat Dollard | Young Americans

“We got to give them a chance.”

MNF-I:

KUTIMIYAH — As if the last day of school wasn’t enough to put smiles on Kutimiyah children’s faces, they also received a special surprise courtesy of 3rd Infantry Division Soldiers.

Soldiers of 1st Battalion, 9th Field Artillery, delivered school supplies to the children May 24, courtesy of Mrs. Casandra Hanson’s 9th grade literature class at Germantown High School, in Germantown, Wis.

The children had been without a school for several months after it was ravaged by insurgents, said 1st Lt. Greg Highstrom, leader of 2nd Platoon, Battery B. The insurgents cracked windows, damaged the building’s structural integrity and destroyed most of the children’s classroom supplies.

The loss of the building meant students were forced to continue their studies in a neighborhood house.

Hanson, a friend of Highstrom, was in contact with him and learned of the children’s predicament.

“The kids are the future of Iraq,” Highstrom said, adding that in order to give them the best shot at a better future, they needed some help in the present. Hanson’s class, as well as several American Legion associations in the area, mailed supplies for the platoon to deliver.

The delivery included paper, pens, pencils, backpacks, glue sticks, erasers and scissors.

“(The supplies are) standard stuff fifth graders need,” said Highstrom, a native of Cedarburg, Wis. “We thought about what we wanted when we were that age.”

While the children were pleased with the supplies, they will have to wait until the next school year to use them. Like children in America, Iraqi children have a three-month summer break between classes.

Although Battery B Soldiers will redeploy from the area before next school year starts, they have taken steps to ensure the upcoming year goes better than the last. To match the new school supplies, the Soldiers began working with Iraqi contractors to repair the damaged school building.

Contractors are also cleaning the building’s interior of debris from improvised explosive device detonations.

“The children need to be able to study in here,” said Hanni Shakur Hussein, a contractor from Yusifiyah. “We need to build the area for these kids’ future.”

It is a statement that Highstrom’s Soldiers agree with, even though their tour is almost complete.

“We got to give them something better,” said Spc. Ian Knight, from Terre Haute, Ind. “We got to give them a chance.”