NEVER, NEVER FORGET:

Outsider Is Caught in Mideast Conflict (Wall Street Journal, 3/12/2003, subscribers only - sorry)

To [Chen Wen, a 38-year-old laborer ], a job in Israel sounded like a great opportunity. In China, his family was sinking under nearly $20,000 in debt -- more than most Chinese earn in a lifetime -- partly because Mr. Chen had borrowed heavily as he tried to start his own tile business. When that failed, he borrowed even more to secure a visa to work abroad. While prices vary around China, he paid about $10,000 to a "middleman company" that arranged his visa.

Mr. Chen was the only breadwinner in the family. He supported seven people, including a 14-year-old son who is mentally ill, two younger children, Mr. Chen's mother, and his 67-year-old father, who is blind....

In January, Mr. Chen was standing on a street in Tel Aviv when a Palestinian man ignited a suicide bomb. The blast, which killed 23 people, severed Mr. Chen's spinal cord and left him paralyzed from the waist down. He has been hospitalized in Israel ever since....

Clutching a small leather bag, Chen Weizhi shuffled past customs officers at Israel's Ben Gurion Airport. Tears welled in her dark eyes.

"I simply don't now how we'll manage," she said, moments after her arrival in Israel. "I don't know how our family will survive."

St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas held that waging a just war was an act of love. Indeed, there is no greater love than this: to risk one's own life to save unknown friends such as the Chens. America is a great and giving nation, the most truly Christian nation in the world. May God bless us and our servicemen and women as we fight the war on terror. Posted by Paul Jaminet at March 12, 2003 11:53 AM