Valour-IT: Your Help is Needed

Today is Veteran’s Day. It means you have a ready-made excuse to do just what it is I’m about to ask you to do - donate to Wounded Warriors by making a donation TODAY to Project Valour-IT. To date Project Valour-IT has given out more than 1600 voice-activated laptops to veterans with hand injuries and other traumas. That may not seem like the a big deal but, for some injured soldiers, it is an absolute life-saver.

From the reports of family and friends of a triple amputee:
The laptop was the first step to the road to recovery. It proved that he was going to be able to do all the things that he did before.

From the CO of a wounded soldier:
He expressed to me today in an email how much that [laptop] helped him. So thank you. Very much. For taking care of my Soldiers when I no longer could.

From a laptop recipient:
I can't begin to tell how much [the laptop] has changed my stay at WRAMC; I am able to correspond with my Soldiers, and my family. My Soldiers are still down range in Iraq. They are coming home soon, and I look forward to being back at my post to receive them. Again, thank you so much.

From the mother of a wounded soldier:
Buzz reports having the laptop has made staying at the hospital more tolerable. It turns out that the laptop is also becoming an important factor in his treatment because besides using it to stay in contact with friends and loved ones while he's hospitalized, he and his wife are using it to gather information on the latest research about spinal cord injuries.

Project Valour-IT was started in the summer of '05, when then Captain Chuck Zeigenfuss woke up in Walter Reed Army Medical Center unable to use his hands after being hit by an IED – feeling humiliated and broken. “Being fed, bathed, taken care of like an infant” not exactly a fitting role for a tank company commander (and blogger) who's used to being the one who helps others. It sure wasn't a role that I wanted," he noted.

But that began to change, when the Soldiers' Angels charity provided him with a laptop, and a buddy got him voice-controlled software to operate it. Suddenly, he was able to connect to the outside world. He was able to take up his blog again, too. And from that, he was able to muster the self-esteem and internal strength to begin his recovery. And Project Valour-IT was born. Chuck states: It was the first time I felt whole since I’d woken up wounded in Landstuhl.

Today is the last day in the annual fund-drive and we are short of our goal of $250,000 so on this Veterans Day I’m asking you to "support the troops" in a powerful and life-changing way. As Chuck says, "I can't wait to give that feeling to another wounded soldier." Please help him do that.

Go to http://soldiersangels.org/index.php?page=project-valour-it and click on Fundraiser and make a donation to Project Valour-IT.