Free Republic

IT'S BEEN two weeks since I wrote about Bennett and Vivian Levin. But my mailbox is still bursting with reaction to the couple's generosity toward wounded troops from Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Bethesda Naval Hospital. "I served three tours in Vietnam and can't remember anyone doing anything like this for the injured soldiers, sailors and Marines that came home from the hospital," wrote James L. Wright Jr. "The Levins and others involved in this truly beautiful act of love are loved right back by every one of us who have heard of their selflessness or served in the...

ND NOW, in time for the holidays, I bring you the best Christmas story you never heard. It started last Christmas, when Bennett and Vivian Levin were overwhelmed by sadness while listening to radio reports of injured American troops. "We have to let them know we care," Vivian told Bennett. So they organized a trip to bring soldiers from Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Bethesda Naval Hospital to the annual Army-Navy football game in Philly, on Dec. 3. The cool part is, they created their own train line to do it. Yes, there are people in this country who...

ABOARD THE USNS COMFORT (AP) -- Navy nurse Kimberlee Flannery came to the Persian Gulf expecting to help wounded Americans. Instead, she has been caring mostly for injured enemy soldiers. Flannery admits she was "very apprehensive" when her first Iraqi soldier came aboard this U.S. Navy hospital ship. But any misgivings she might have had quickly melted away. "Then you see the pain and the agony of the people, and that whole mindset is erased," said the 23-year-old from Chillicote, Ohio. So far, the patient roster aboard the USNS Comfort off the coast of Bahrain, has been the product of...