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Bruce Thornton
Decline and Fall: Europe's Slow Motion Suicide
On the streets now.
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Ralph Peters
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Wars of Blood and Faith
Ralph Peters
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Conservatives Are From Mars, Liberals Are From San Francisco
by Burt Prelutsky
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Ralph Peters is a regular columnist with the New
York Post.
Register here for access to the Post's Online Edition.
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PETERS |
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Shoah Refugee Pulls for Vets
by Ralph
Peters [author,
novelist] 12/15/07
Eva Balcazar, nee Rosenthal, left her home in Berlin-Dahlem at age 8, a week after Kristallnacht, the Germany-wide assault on Jews in 1938. Ninety percent of her relatives perished in the Nazi death camps.
In 1951, she married a US Army officer and became a US citizen. Now 77 and widowed, Eva's back in the fight - as a volunteer aiding the wounded vets who crowd the interim Warrior and Family Support Center.
Contributor
Ralph Peters - Contributor
Ralph
Peters is a retired Army officer and the author of 19 books,
as well as of hundreds of essays and articles, written both
under his own name and as Owen Parry. He is a frequent columnist
for the New York Post and other publications. [go to Peters Index] |
Two years ago, Eva literally looked in the mirror and asked herself, "What are you doing to help?" Now the lady with the continental manners and the passion of a street-level activist works every week and every holiday. Fluent in Spanish, she specializes in helping family members whose limited English complicates working with the military bureaucracy.
Sometimes those frightened parents just need to talk, and Eva's a wonderful listener. But given a chance to speak for herself, her eyes cloud and she turns slightly toward the wall: "What do you do with a beautiful young man who has no arms, no legs, no face, but the most beautiful blue eyes . . . with no eyelids?"
Thinking back on all the veterans she's seen pass through the center, Eva sighs and says, "It takes them such a long time . . . and it's not just the physical, but the mental damage they suffer . . . and the young families with no idea what they're going to do for the rest of their lives . . ."
She's furious that her fellow Americans don't do more to help. "Put politics aside . . . these kids aren't interested in the politics of this war." With her old-fashioned sense of duty, she's particularly annoyed that retired officers rarely volunteer at the center.
Eva - who looks 60, acts 40 and glows like a debutante at a ball - shakes her head and prepares to get back to work. "I love every boy who walks in here," she says. ExileStreet
WHAT YOU CAN DO
You can donate to the Warrior and Family Support Center project via credit card by phone at 1-888- 343-HERO or at ReturningHeroesHome.org.
To give by mail, send your donations to:
Returning Heroes Home
P.O. Box 202194
Dallas, TX 75320-2194
Checks should be made out to Returning Heroes Home, Inc. This is a nonprofit 501c3 endeavor; all donations are tax-deductible.
All contributions, in any amount, will help our wounded warriors. Please give to those who gave so much.
Ralph Peters' latest book, "Wars of Blood and Faith," is on the street.
This
piece first appeared in the New York Post
copyright 2007 - NY Post
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