Haiti and Haitians

I know that most of you all have seen the devastation that has recently happened to Haiti. When I watched the news, I am at first incredibly sad that it happened to one of the poorest and hardest luck countries on the earth, and then I have flashbacks to my second big deployment and my 9 or so months in Haiti.  Even then  I could tell that the country had very little going for it:  No roads, no economy, no phones, no police, no government, not a lot to wake up in the morning for.  After those deployments I never complained about taxes, the seemingly in-effectiveness of our government or anything state related.  I just thanked my lucky stars I was born in the US and not Haiti.  

If you have the where-with-all and inclination, I would ask that you go to:

http://www.redcross.org/ 

and donate some money towards their Haitian relief effort.  

Honestly, Haitians don't have much going for them:  They live in a dirt poor country with no natural resources, no trees, no cool jungles or reefs to attract tourists and money, their neighboring countries hate them, their government is in-effective, their local leaders are probably crooks, if one of them somehow rises up and scratches out a living, other folks reach up to drag him down or take advantage of him.  

So when something like the earthquake happens, they need all the help they can get.  Most of the folks I worked with down there thought the world of the US and Americans, it saddens me greatly to see them suffer even more.  Our country is so vast and rich when compared to the rest of the world that if something like the earthquake happened here, other states would pitch in (I want to say "like during Katrina .  . . " but that might not be a good example), our government would dip into the magic deficit coffers and come up with some dough, and folks could just drive on over and help out.  Not in Haiti.  Everything is hard there, so cough up a few bucks and feel good that your donation helped out someone who really needs it.  

Thanks.