My niece, the Girl Scouts, and Iraq

A couple weeks ago, I was visiting my sister and one of my nieces came up to me and asked me for money for a Girl Scout project. Being an uncle, you always expect to be hit up frequently to buy some crappy candy or something, but this time was decidedly different.

Her Girl Scout troop had been visited by an Iraq war vet. I'm not exactly sure how it came about, but her troop was raising money to buy Silly String (that weird aerosol foam toy) to send on to this guy's unit in Iraq.

She got this shadowed look on her face as she described how they use the Silly String to spray around doorways looking for trip wires. She couldn't look me in the eye as she told me the soldier was missing most of his right hand.

I kicked in my $20, but something about that has been hanging with me for weeks.