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Stafford resident Mark Wehle is working on Iraq's power grid. This note thanks him for supplies collected here.
Contractor Mark Wehle (center) has worked on power grid restoration in Baghdad.
Mark Wehle has the satisfaction of implementing his son's Eagle Scout project in Iraq with bags of school supplies.
'Sweet, smiling faces were in abundance' as supplies arrive at a Baghdad-area school. |
By MICHAEL ZITZ
Last year, a Stafford County teen asked his father for help with an Eagle Scout project.
The outcome created a connection between Muslims and Mormons as well as an increased understanding between people in a village near Baghdad and people in the Fredericksburg area.
Many stories of despair come out of Iraq.
This is a story of hope.
Stafford County resident Mark Wehle is a civilian engineer working with the Army Corps of Engineers to get Iraq's crumbling power grid up and running. It's a vital mission in a war-torn country that has experienced five years of increasing frustration over the fact that most residents have electricity for only a couple of hours a day.
The 48-year-old Wehle, who's working at the Al-Quds Power Plant, north of Baghdad on the Iraq Power Project for the Washington Group of Boise, Idaho, wants Iraqi children to have lights to study--both in schools and at home. Because of his work in Iraq, those children are never far from his thoughts.
So last year, Wehle's then 17-year-old son Matthew was looking for an idea
Matthew, a 2007 Mountain View High School graduate, asked his father what he could do to make a difference and to help Americans understand the plight of those children.
When he asked his father what he could do to help, Mark Wehle asked Iraqis at the power plant.
The sheik of a nearby village said its two schools needed supplies. Mark Wehle was surprised and moved that the sheik didn't ask for big-ticket items like computers. Instead, he requested small, inexpensive things like pens and pencils, notebooks, construction paper and glue.
Though a world apart, father and son worked together long-distance on the humanitarian project, mounting a campaign to provide help two elementary schools--one for girls and one for boys--in an Iraqi village just outside Baghdad.
Both are essentially mud huts, Mark Wehle said.
Wehle, a supporter of American involvement in Iraq, argues that if the U.S. were to pull out precipitously, young girls like the ones attending that elementary school would suffer. They would no longer be afforded the opportunity to study if radicals took control of the country.
Altogether, about 300 Iraqi children benefited from the supplies, he said.
"Too many people here just complain about the situation in Iraq and don't do anything to make a dif-ference," young Matthew said as he worked to round up supplies back home in Stafford.
"I think this is a good way to help the children of Iraq who got stuck in the middle of everything. They're just children. I'm sure they know what's going on, but it's not their fault. And they don't have the things we take for granted."
COMMUNITY STEPS UP
Back home, the Wehles found many eager to help, including, locally, the Fredericksburg Rotary Club, the family's Church of Latter-day Saints in Stafford and Matthew's Boy Scout Troop 949 in Stafford.
The Mail Letter Carriers Union in Washington paid to ship the supplies to Iraq. Then Reed Inc., located in Leesburg, transported the donations through dangerous sections of Baghdad, to the power plant, and then to the village itself.
But Mark Wehle said an Iraqi friend was able to make some of the deliveries because American troops had made Baghdad streets safer than they had been.
He said the friend, Saad, works at the power plant and has helped with a generator and water for the village, came to the rescue. "Before the "troop surge" Saad would not have even considered making a trip like this across town--this time would be no problem," Wehle said.
"We had to store all the items at the camp in an air conditioned room," he said. "It was so hot that we could smell the crayons melting. There were bunches of boxes and many different types of supplies donated. People were generous and Matt did a good job with the money he used to buy the supplies and we had a large variety."
'FROM LOVING FAMILIES'
The head of the village school system and his assistant met Saad and anxiously helped with the unloading, Wehle said.
"These men marveled at the generosity that unknown Americans would show by providing much needed items for their small village school system," he said. "Crayons, colored pencils, water color paints, finger paints, construction paper, pencils and sharpeners, pens, art supplies, modeling clay, glue, scissors, notebooks, coloring books, small carry pouches, stickers, picture books, stamps and stamp pads, small toddler toys, jump ropes, and even girls hair ribbons were among the cornucopia of items that came pouring in from loving families anxious to respond to Matthew's call for donations."
THE BIG DAY ARRIVES
When the delivery day came, Wehle said the obedient youngsters all stood up, as is tradition when the school's headmaster and village leaders entered the classroom.
He said, "Sweet, smiling faces were in abundance that day. Saad told me how his heart was filled that day being present for this event."
Wehle noted that there is an Iraqi Arabic word pronounced "Bil-laf-eyah." that means one is full and satisfied after a meal, or clean and fresh after a shower or bath.
"I can say that my heart was definitely "Bil-laf-eyah" after seeing the pictures that Saad, my true friend and hero, brought back for me and all of us to enjoy," he said.
Wehle said his family's Mormon faith and his adherence to church standards has surprised many of his Iraqi co-workers.
Iraqi perceptions of America are based for the most part on Hollywood, he said.
"They honestly never thought there were Americans that are chaste, don't drink, smoke, swear, and hold firm to moral rules similar to Islam. I don't talk about it with them except as they ask. It's one of the rules for working over here."
By the same token, both Wehles found satisfaction in changing the perception some in this country have of Iraqis.
"Many Americans do not realize the conditions that many of these villages struggle with to conduct the simple aspects of life," Mark Wehle said.
That's why the school supplies project has become so important to the Wehle family, both in Iraq and Stafford.
Acts of kindness like this from people to people, can help, he believes, to win the battle for hearts and minds in Iraq.
In a voice-over-Internet-protocol interview with The Free Lance-Star, an Iraqi man from the village said of the school supplies effort: "It is needed. And we are grateful for the help." He asked not to be named for security reasons. And the village is not being identified due to concern about potential insurgent reprisals.
"The normal Iraqi," Mark Wehle said, "just wants a job with economic security, safety and freedom. None of the ones I work with support the [radical] religious parties."
Michael Zitz: 540/846-5163
Email: mikez@freelancestar.com
