By Spc. Gretel Sharpee
MOSUL, Iraq- When music is a part of your life, you notice when it is not around. For one Army officer, who makes music a part of his everyday life, the lack of music in the lives of the Iraqi children was a discordant sound. With the help of friends in the United States, he has made it his mission to hand out small musical instruments when he is in the Iraqi community.
"I noticed that the children [in Iraq] have lots of everything you don't want children to be playing with like garbage, sticks or wires, but none of what you do," said Maj. Glenn Tolle, with Task Force Olympia, the command element in northern Iraq. "I wanted to let them experience music first hand."
Tolle comes in contact with children in Iraq frequently when he goes out on Civil Affairs missions in and around Mosul. After identifying the situation, he contacted his friends in Olympia, Wash., and told them about his wish to have musical instruments to hand out to the children he meets. Members of the Columbia Street Irish Seisiun and the family of David and Tammy Poor, who are friends of Tolle's in Washington, gathered whistles, harmonicas, kazoos, maracas, tambourines and harps to send to Iraq.
"The instruments arrived in two shipments and I have been handing them out bit by bit ever since they arrived in February," said Tolle. "I am pretty sure I am befriending the kids and making enemies with the parents for handing out such loud toys."
Tolle hopes to have enough musical toys to hand out for the duration of his deployment. Thanks to the help from his friends at home he might.
| Date Taken: | 07.22.2004 |
| Date Posted: | 07.22.2004 11:56 |
| Story ID: | 144 |
| Location: | MOSUL, IQ |
| Web Views: | 130 |
| Downloads: | 88 |
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