I made you a promise, young lady, and I'm not going to forget about it. 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"

2004.12.05:

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.

2005.01.14:

I can't take any credit for making it happen but I can still be glad it did: As I noted in this post and the posts I linked to from there, Senators Jeff Sessions and Joe Lieberman have announced that they are going to cosponsor legislation to greatly increase benefits paid to the survivors of our KIAs. It's time for me to start sending emails and making phone calls to everyone I can think of who might be able to help line up support for their "HEROES Act." I'll blog more on the subject when I have more news.

2005.01.15:

SgtMgr blogged about the HEROES Act here and Michael blogged about it here.

I finally got around to doing a "Contacting Your Legislators" post here.

I Googled for more news about the HEROES Act and discovered that Congressman Terry Everett is going to introduce a companion bill in the House of Representatives.  I've posted a copy of his official press release here.

2005.01.16:

I created 'A Chronological Summary Of My "Brianna"/HEROES Act Posts,'  which I'll update as time goes on.

The traditional media types are gradually paying a little more attention, but still not enough. See 'More HEROES Act News Coverage'

2005.01.17:

I finally got around to emailing some of the bigger bloggers, something I should have done days ago.  (I'm still spending way too much time sleeping and feeling guiltier about it by the day.)

I posted 'Senators seek rise in death payments,' based on  a Washington Times article.

Blackfive emailed back to say he's going to post about the HEROES Act tomorrow. Apparently SgtMgr (and possibly some others) had emailed him about it too. I don't care who he mentions in his post or links to, just as long as he helps.

2005.01.18:

I posted 'STARS AND STRIPES: Benefits could increase for survivors of troops killed in Iraq, Afghanistan' and 'A summary of the 2005 Sessions/Lieberman/Everett HEROES Act.'

Blackfive posted 'The HEROES ACT - Support The Survivors'. He gets about a hundred times as much blog traffic as I do, so maybe now things will start moving a little faster. His post mentioned SgtMgr and me, so maybe we were partly responsible.

I updated 'Contacting Your Legislators' with new information from SgtMgr.

Michelle Malkin posted 'PAYING MORE THAN LIP SERVICE TO THE TROOPS.' I don't think it's stretching things too much to say I put her up to it.

Say Anything posted 'The HEROES Act.'

Woody posted 'HEROES Act'

Kathianne posted 'Caring For Those Left Behind'

2005.01.20:

Google and Yahoo are finding enough links to new articles about the HEROES Act that I'm not going to attempt to list all of them, although I definitely will still consider it blogworthy if any of the big Old Media sites ever gets around to mentioning it.  I doubt there will be much more talk about it till Congress gets down to business next week, at the soonest. I'll keep trying to find out more about the bill, but that will probably be a lot easier next week too. Doing whatever I can to help push the legislation will remain my top priority from now till it's passed but it looks like that will leave me some time to blog about some other things as well.

I'm proud to be able to link to 'Do you Really support our troops?' on my daughter's site. She and I don't agree about some things and her site appeals to a different crowd than mine, so some people will read about the legislation there who'd never visit my site.

2005.01.21:

I realized a couple of Lib sites have posted favorable comments about the Heroes act and linked to them from 'Some Lib support for the HEROES Act'

Russ Vaughn sent me a nice essay in support of the bill but he has a standing arrangement with American Thinker that they get everything like that first so I can't post it till they do. Maybe tomorrow.

I posted 'Some Lib support for the HEROES Act' and 'Some sample HEROES Act letters'

2005.01.22:

Russ's essay is up on The American Thinker and at 'So You Say You Support The Troops? 2d Ed.'

The Daou Report just linked to 'So You Say You Support The Troops? 2d Ed.', so maybe some people will see it who don't normally read things on "right wing" sites.

2005.01.23:

Russ's essay is posted enough places around the web that I won't try to list them all., although I do want to mention that it's posted here on my daughter's site.

2005.01.24:

The HEROES Act (Senate bill S. 77) and at least one alternative bill that isn't quite as good (Senate bill S. 42.) were introduced in the Senate and at least one bill (House bill H.R. 292) to increase the KIA death gratuity was introduced in the House.

20005.01.25:

I posted 'Senator Dole announces her support for the HEROES Act' and 'HEROES Act Introduced in Senate'

2005.01.26:

The New York Times finally got around to paying some attention to the situation, as I noted at 'Good News and Bad News on the Brianna/HEROES Front'

The HEROES ACT was introduced in the House as H.R. 377.

2005.01.28:

I posted 'A great HEROES Act letter you should see' and 'HEROES Act -- Updates coming', and located enough information for several more posts (as soon as I get it organized.)

2005.01.29:

I posted 'Other Survivor Benefit Bills'

2005.01.31:

I posted 'Senate Armed Services Committee to discuss survivor benefits' (on Feb 1) and 'Great HEROES Act News !!!' (President Bush wants the HEROES Act passed.)