THE NATION'S PULSE: My Favorite Charity
Babbin, Jed
THE NATION'S PULSE JED BABBIN My Favorite Charity A Few Good People paying a debt we all owe. AMES MICHAEL LEWIS is a really busy guy. At the ripe old age of 34, he's already graduated from...
...She reaches out to the grieving...
...Retired Air Force Colonel John Carney is one of those big, strapping Irish guys who are just great to be around...
...A couple of days later, some of the survivors of the mission started passing the hat for money to provide those 17 kids the means to go to college...
...THERE ARE A LOT OF MILITARY CHARITIES, and the vast majority of them do wonderful work...
...And when the kids reach junior high or high school, Becker is there, in person or on the phone, providing them with help and advice...
...Doubling as the financial coordinator for SOWF, Becker also helps the families and kids wade through the swamp of paperwork to get other federal and state benefits...
...They're giving me the education my dad would have wanted me to have and would have provided himself...
...Soon Ross Perot, writer Ben Schimmer, and Special Forces legend Colonel Bob Beckwith—the first Delta Force commander and leader of the Desert One mission—were all pitching in...
...S1 OWF HAS NO ENDOWMENT and receives no federal funding...
...When he's not with his family (his wife, Kristin, gave birth to their daughter last February), he's busy saving lives and studying how to save more...
...Most of the money comes from the troops themselves, in donations through the Combined Federal Campaign...
...The eight who died at the "Desert One" staging area—from which the newborn Army Delta Force intended to enter Tehran and rescue the hostages held at the American embassy—left behind 17 children...
...1/4 Jed Babbin, an American Spectator contributing editor, is the author of Inside the Asylum: Why the UN and Old Europe Are Worse Than You Think (Refinery 2004...
...A parachute specialist, Matos was killed in a training accident in 1991 when Stephanie was 13 years old...
...As Becker put it, troubled moms are more 0 LL 0 >- (r) H 0 0 HO a_ 46 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR DECEMBER 2005/JANUARY 2006 JED BABBIN likely to have troubled kids...
...Life might not have turned out so well for Doc Lewis—and his patients—were it not for my favorite charity, the Special Operations Warrior Foundation (SOWF...
...About four years ago, SOWF called Stephanie's mother and told her about how they'd pay Stephanie's way through college...
...It couldn't be true...
...She is one of those nuclear-powered people who seem to be on the run all the time...
...Before 9/11, SOWF planned to raise college funds for the children of about 15 special ops warriors killed every year...
...In 2005, it will have paid out $1 million in college tuition, room, board, and book expenses for the kids...
...I don't know of any other charity that keeps overhead so low...
...But the gaps in what the government does for the families of those killed in action were all too clear...
...The charity usually keeps its annual overhead expenses below 10 percent...
...As Carney tells it, the future of their dead comrades' children was as much on the minds of the survivors of that mission as was their failure to rescue the hostages...
...This raised $100,000...
...The huge fuel bladder the C-130 was carrying exploded, killing Lewis and seven other men...
...They open a file on each child and—whether infant or adult—they are tracked and helped toward a college or trade school education...
...Caroline Becker said SOWF John Carney, budgets each child according to the Stephanie Matos, and James Lewis Published college and university budgets...
...James Lewis's future didn't look nearly as rosy in April 1980...
...But we can help give their children a college education and a good start in life...
...And that was all (well, not counting the daughter) before he became a fellow in surgical oncology at the Moffett Air Force Base cancer treatment center in Florida...
...About 60 SOWF scholarship kids have already graduated and there are at least another 400 in the pipeline, ranging in age from Jim Lewis with Ross Perot infants to high schoolers...
...Last year, the Sig Sauer company—which manufactures the sidearm of choice for the Navy SEALs—made a special one-time public sale of the SEAL gun, and donated $50 for each to SOWF...
...One of the people who make SOWF unique is Caroline Becker, its full-time school psychologist...
...When John Carney took the reins at SOWF in 1997, there were 15 to 20 children in college and about 300 more "in the pipeline...
...As a young major, Carney filled the first Air Force boots that hit the ground at Desert One and—like the others who were there—felt the blast of the explosion in his heart as well as his body...
...Box 14385, Tampa, FL 33690, 1-877-337-7693, www.specialops.org...
...The fundraising—led by thenMajor Bob Brenci—got rolling and soon a scholarship fund, at first called the "Bull Simons Fund" after the legendary Green Beret, was established...
...Stephanie Matos is one of the SOWF-sponsored students now attending college...
...She has a lot to say about what SOWF has done for her...
...The result, after some fits and starts, is the Special Operations Warrior Foundation...
...Theywanted to do something about it...
...But none of them is more focused, dedicated, and efficient than SOWF...
...Stephanie is planning to graduate from college next year with a major in exercise therapy...
...Then SOWF entered her life...
...SOWF started planning to fund college educations for 56 new children in 2004, and by October 2005, there were 60 more...
...They get what they need, not what they may want (though they may have enough left over for an occasional pizza...
...Its mission is to enable the children of every special operations warrior to attend college...
...His father, Air Force pilot Captain Hal Lewis, was killed when a helicopter, trying to lift off in a high wind in the Iranian desert, side-slipped and collided with Lewis's C-130 tanker...
...John Carney runs a tight ship...
...Her father's death left her drifting, and after finishing high school she left home in Florida and went to New York, tending bar and just getting along...
...Colonel Carney said that Stephanie Matos is one of about 90 children for whom SOWF is now providing college funding...
...I thought it's gotta be a scam," Matos told me...
...It's like a gift from my dad...
...But the SOWF does a lot more than just track the students...
...We can never repay what we owe these men...
...Everyone thinks about charities at Christmastime...
...At the ripe old age of 34, he's already graduated from medical school, served his residency, operated as chief trauma surgeon on about 750 patients, and fathered a beautiful baby girl...
...That's a tough age for every kid...
...On average, 90 cents out of every dollar donated is paid out in benefits to the kids...
...This season, think about those 400 or so children of fallen special operations warriors in the SOWF pipeline, and the 120 who will be in college next year...
...She's getting straight A's and aiming at becoming a physical therapist...
...Her dad, Sergeant Major Santos Matos, is enshrined in the Army Ranger Hall of Fame...
...DECEMBER 2005/JANUARY 2006 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 47...
...Next year, Carney anticipates having 100-120 children in colleges, universities, and trade schools across the nation...
...Syndicated radio talk show host Laura Ingraham auctioned off SEAL Sig serial number 001, raising $25,000 from the sale and another $25,000 or so in separate donations...
...In 1997, Carney became its president...
...Now, because the Special Forces are fully occupied, serving as always at the point of the spear, there are a lot more...
...The pipeline begins at the moment SOWF learns that a Navy SEAL, Army Green Beret, Marine Force Recon, or Air Commando has fallen in the line of duty...
...In Pentagonese, Lewis is an RSG: a real smart guy...
...But more and more private donations are coming in...
...But it was...
...The men of Desert One knew about the counseling, the survivors' benefits the families would receive...
...Their fathers have died to preserve our children's future...
...Please make your donation to SOWF (Special Operations Warrior Foundation, P.O...
...She helps learning-disabled children get into special programs that make it possible for them to graduate from high school...
Vol. 38 • December 2005 • No. 10
