I made you a promise, young lady, and I'm not going to forget about it. I'll have to spend some time on other things, and I'll have to slow down to eat and sleep now and then, but I'll keep this post at the top of my blog, above anything else new, to remind me I have a promise to keep.

This post will remain at the top of my blog, just below all the post-dated things. Doing that will mean changing the time stamp every time I post something new, which will remind me I made a promise.

Progress report:

2004.11.27:

Delftsman3 at "Mamamontezz's Mental Rumpus Room" helped with his post, "The SHAME of our Country"

Jack  at "Conservative Insurgent" helped with his post, "Survivors" and contributed some thoughts of his own that I linked back to here.

I busted some shirt buttons when I learned that my daughter Heather had linked to my post with "A Call to Help"

2004.11.29:

Brianna, I should explain that when I blog about other things that doesn't mean I've forgotten my promise to you. I need to generate some reasons for people to come to my blog so they can read about my promise while they're here. The more people there are that know, the more chance there is of the right people knowing and helping. I'm doing the best I can. It's just that it may take a while.

2004.12.05:

SgtMgr at The Quonset Hut is helping with this post and has also emailed me asking what else he can do. I'll be staying in touch with him.

2004.12.25

I'm ashamed of myself for not doing a better job of keeping this post up to date. Things have happened that I should have mentioned and didn't, and I don't have any good excuses.

On 2004.12.13, Hack at Lunch Bucket linked to this post from his post here.

On 2004.12.16 SgtMgr posted some great information on how people can contact their elected officials here. I know from the email he sent me that you were a major part of his motivation for the effort he put into tracking down the information.  I should have linked to his post the day I found out about it. I'll turn the link into a separate post within the next day or two, but I wanted to mention it here too. I have no excuse for sitting on the information for almost two weeks.

On 2004.12.18 SgtMgr posted good news here about a new survivors' benefit law that went into effect in Illinois on that date. He posted the news the day it happened and emailed me the same day. It took me a week to get around to mentioning it here.  I'm sorry.

Brianna, last night I got one of the nicest Christmas presents anyone could have given me, in the form of email from a friend who cares about your situation. (I'm going to err on the side of caution by not mentioning his name without permission. Let's just call him another 'Nam vet who cares.)  He was writing me with good news, Brianna, possibly very good news. He wrote to let me know that the committee assignments for the next Senate session have been announced and that his Senator, John Thune, has been appointed to the Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs committees.  Living in Senator Thune's home state, my friend paid a lot more attention to him than I did prior to his election and he thinks Senator Thune is someone who'll be interested in helping out.  My friend also tells me he has a long-time friend in Minnesota who's been involved enough in some Republican campaigns in that state to possibly have some influence with Senator Norm Coleman. Brianna, if we can get Senator Coleman on our side we can almost certainly count on help from Time's Blog of the Year, Power Line. If we can get one of the big blogs like that on board, good things will happen.

Brianna, I promised you before that I'd stay after this, and I meant it. I've let some things distract me from pushing it every day, and for that I apologize. Partly I've been waiting for a couple of friends I think will want to help out to be available to do so. One of them has been sick for quite a while now and one has said she wants to help but won't be able to until things settle down after the holidays. Partly I just let other things get in the way, and partly there are just days when I'm tired and not emotionally up to dealing with the grief I feel every time I think about you, and Kadence, and all of the other children like you whose parents gave their all for our country. (Did your father take a day off because he was "tired" and not "up to" the doing what needed done? Did Kadence's? Damn it, Bill, that's no excuse!) I haven't stayed after the situation like I should have, Brianna, but I haven't forgotten; I have friends who won't let me if I try to. It may take time, but we will get the situation fixed. I'm just an old man with a keyboard and an attitude, Brianna, but I'm stubborn as a mule. Our Warriors have enough to think about without wondering "Who'll take care of my kids if I don't come home?" We're going to answer that question for them the way it should be answered: "The nation you're risking your life for will." I promise.

2004.12.29

Brianna, look what Flight Pundit did here and here. Interest in this cause may spread sort of slow at first, but it is spreading, and after a certain point it will start spreading faster. We'll get there.