Deployment brings compassionate aid

In the months before Chaplain Maj. Kenneth Sorenson brigade was assigned to support the current engagement in Fallujah, officials with the First Armored Division worked with the Iraqi nationals and a high-ranking Muslim cleric to establish a 500-bed orphanage in the Baghdad suburb of Khadamiyah. Requested by Hussein Al-Sadr, a distant relative of high-ranking cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, Sorenson said the project represents a major shift in Muslim culture.

“He really wants his country to come forward,” the chaplain said.

One of the five pillars of Islam addresses the giving of alms, a commandment to give to the poor, widowed and orphans.

“What’s new is they are willing to ask for help,” he said. “They don’t want to come right out and say it. It symbolizes they aren’t taking care of the poor,”

Progress on the joint project was slow, Sorenson said, because of paperwork difficulties, site selection and fund-raising, with some of the money coming from Muslim clerics. Most soldiers, he said, were not involved in the direct orphanage effort, but provided security.

“It takes more time because of the insurgents,” the chaplain said. “It slows down a lot of the work and the work improvements. The insurgents are very good at trying to slow down progress and projects. They are good at tearing down things we are trying to build up.”

Despite the widely publicized acts of violence, Sorenson bristles at the notion that the troops are fighting a losing battle. His own experience, he said, is in stark contrast with the nightly news

“This is not like Vietnam,” Sorenson said. “The good majority of the people in Iraq want to work with us and (to) have an improved way of life.”

Published, January 2005

Christian Examiner™, P.O. Box 2606 El Cajon, CA 92021 • 619-668-5100 • Fax 619-668-1115
Email: info@christianexaminer.com • Web site: www.christianexaminer.com