by Gary Sinise
From 2004 until 2013—nine seasons and 197 original episodes in all—I portrayed Detective Mac Taylor on CSI: NY. The show ranked as high as number seventeen on Nielsen and evened out to about ten million viewers per episode, considered quite good. Today, it’s been shown in more than two hundred markets all over the world and continues to run in syndication. Eventually comic books, novels, a video game, and even a slot machine in Vegas came out, all based on the show.
Although at first I didn’t see what a blessing it would be, the series became one of the greatest gifts ever handed to me. Nine seasons on television is a tremendous success, and it gave me resources I never could have imagined. It allowed me the financial and logistical freedom to take good care of my family and continue my mission of supporting the troops. It gave me a greater public platform to spread that message of support. Without the financial blessings that resulted from the series, I never could have done the service work I’m doing today at the level I’m engaged in. The timing of the series was perfect, coming at the exact right moment, and has helped me with the mission I feel I was called to all those years ago. I will always be proud to have portrayed US Marine Corps veteran and 9/11 family member Detective Mac Taylor on CSI: NY.
CHAPTER 14
Helping Children
We suited up in helmets and bulletproof vests and drove out in a convoy of Humvees to visit one of the Iraqi elementary schools that US troops had been working to improve. It was November 2003, my second tour of Iraq with the USO. The school itself wasn’t considered dangerous, but the roads out to the school and back were always suspect, particularly when traveling with US military. Troops had built walls and restrooms at the school, repainted sections of the building, and installed windows and ceiling fans, and they wanted to show us what they’d been working on.
Keep in mind that our troops had only been in Iraq for eight months or so. The statue of Saddam had fallen in Baghdad in April, and the insurgency had now started to pick up. During the next few years, from about 2004 to 2007, the insurgency would grow, and Iraq would become a highly dangerous place indeed.
On this trip in 2003, Wayne Newton, Chris Isaak, country singer Neal McCoy, and I all traveled in the convoy together. Soldiers operated as our security detail. When we arrived at the school, the headmaster came out to greet us along with Iraqi teachers, interpreters, a few Iraqi parents, and a welcoming cadre of children. They greeted us warmly and beamed with pride about their new school. Boys and girls played together outside. Inside, they were taught separately, in about eight classrooms total.
We all said our hellos. School representatives led us on a tour of the school building. Boys filled the first classroom we stepped into, and I was shocked and surprised when the boys all shouted, “Lieutenant Dan!” Everybody burst out laughing, including me, and it turned out that one of the soldiers had coached them how to say that before I arrived. When the laughing subsided, I turned to Wayne Newton and said, “Well, I think I’m going to be living with ‘Lieutenant Dan’ for a while.”
Wayne chuckled and replied, “Yeah. Lieutenant Dan is your ‘Danke Schoen.’” I chuckled back. The German-titled love song was inextricably linked with Wayne, even though he had recorded and performed many other hits. In 1963, when he was just twenty-one, Wayne had recorded a version of the song that shot up the charts. And in 1986, his recording rode a new wave of popularity after Matthew Broderick lip-synced it in the hit comedy Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. This was my second tour with Wayne in six months. He had always been a big supporter of the troops, first singing with the USO as a child. Over the years, Wayne did many other USO tours and performed with Bob Hope during Vietnam.
It wasn’t all fun and games at the school. The children themselves seemed happy, grateful for an education, and proud of their school. Conditions at this school had definitely improved since Saddam ran the country. I couldn’t help but notice how many children sat at each desk. The desks looked longer than typical American school desks, perhaps built to seat two comfortably. Yet three to four children huddled at each. Each little group would share one pencil stub, passing it back and forth among themselves, working on just a few sheets of paper. These desks and pencils were the only school equipment I saw. The walls at this school were bare—and not because they’d recently been painted. I asked a few careful questions, and it turned out that the sparseness of school supplies was typical of area schools. Few pencils, sheets of paper, or books were available. Certainly nothing close to the mass of erasers, glue, rulers, binders, geometry sets, art supplies, maps, posters, lettering charts, sports equipment, and backpacks we saw at home. When I asked why the Iraqi children didn’t have more supplies, the surprising answer came back: “Because we can’t get them here.”
The kids themselves seemed smart and kind. I tried to put myself in their shoes. What would it be like to go to school in a war-stricken country? What would it be like to go to a school consisting solely of students, teachers, and a small building with only eight classrooms? No gym. No library. No sports field. We continued from classroom to classroom, where all the kids greeted us enthusiastically, and cheered readily for the US soldiers. It was obvious just how much the troops cared about the children, and just how safe the children felt around the troops.
At one point I pulled out a picture of my own children, squatted down next to a group of Iraqi schoolgirls, and showed them my family. The interpreter explained who the kids were in the picture. The girls beamed and giggled, and talked with each other, very excited. Through the interpreter, they asked more questions about my own kids.
The headmaster of the school wanted to show me something. Through the interpreter, he explained how he’d made a plaque and put it up in his office, a tiny room. The plaque was written in Arabic and English. He was very proud. The plaque read:
BY THE GRACE OF GOD, AND THE COOPERATION BETWEEN THE FREE IRAQI PEOPLE AND THE COALITION FORCES, AL-MAJD PRIMARY SCHOOL HAS BEEN REBUILT. THIS SCHOOL IS DEDICATED ON 20 SEPT. 2003 FOR THE EDUCATION AND A NEW GENERATION OF FREE IRAQI PEOPLE. MAY THIS WORK STAND, UNDER GOD’S WATCHFUL EYES, AS A TESTAMENT TO THE HARD WORK AND DEDICATION TO FREEDOM OF IRAQ AND THE COALITION FORCES. CONTRACTOR: AL-ANWAR CONTRACTING CO. COALITION FORCES: 205 MI BRIGADE
I never forgot that. At this moment, prior to the insurgency, it showed they had a lot of hope for the future.
At one point in one of the classrooms, Wayne beckoned me over to form an impromptu quartet with Chris and Neal, and we sang “You Are My Sunshine” for the kids. When we finished, they clapped heartily. We spent several hours at the school, just talking with the children and troops and school officials, giving high fives and playing simple games with the kids, taking many photographs that I still have, and trying to ingrain in the minds and hearts of Iraqi children and their parents that they weren’t forgotten by the world. They were respected and valued. They mattered. And our troops were there to help them.
As we headed back to the base in our convoy, an idea started to percolate in the back of my mind, but I didn’t say anything at first. It wasn’t a big idea initially, just simply reflecting the phrase that was digging deep roots into my heart:
I can do more.
After I returned home to the States, my idea started to take shape. I knew it wouldn’t be feasible for me to fly to Iraq each month to help with USO handshake tours. I needed to do something from home to let the troops and Iraqi citizens know they weren’t forgotten.
I called the principal for my children’s school and asked if I could come in and talk to the kids about what I’d seen in Iraq. I explained that I could show a video and photographs. Then perhaps we could ask all the kids if they’d like to put together a care package of school supplies for the Iraqi children. Once the supplies were gathered, I could send the care package over to the military base in Iraq where I had contacts, and the troops I’d just met could return to the school and pass out the supplies.
The principal liked the idea. We held an assembly, and I talked to t
he kids about the trip and explained my plan, and all the kids seemed excited about creating care packages. The principal sent notes home with the kids, and they went to work collecting school supplies, teddy bears, soccer balls—anything the Iraqi kids might enjoy. We also had the kids write letters of encouragement and goodwill to the Iraqi kids. I didn’t know how many supplies we’d gather, but I figured anything would help and at least it would be a gesture.
Supplies trickled in. Over the next few weeks, more and more supplies arrived. By January 2004, we’d filled twenty-five big boxes. I mailed them to the base in Iraq. The troops drove out to the school again and handed out the supplies to the kids I’d met on my trip. The soldiers wrote back to me, sending photos and videos and describing the wonderful day and the happy smiles on the faces of children, teachers, and Iraqi parents.
I started thinking, Why not keep this flow of goodwill going? Not only from my own children’s school, but from other schools too. My plan was still very grassroots. Schools could get addresses of military bases themselves, or I’d help supply addresses; then the schools could simply duplicate the model. I went on radio and TV a couple times and explained how others could do what we’d done. The model stood to be win-win all around. Iraqi children and their parents would be helped. The troops would be supported and encouraged and would know that the American people were not forgetting about them. People at home could pitch in and help in a positive way. We didn’t hear a lot of good stories in the news about the war, but I knew those good stories were out there. I not only wanted to tell those stories, I also wanted to help create them.
A soldier I knew had been in touch with New York Times bestselling author Laura Hillenbrand, who a few years earlier had written the inspiring book Seabiscuit, about an underdog racehorse who persevered and ultimately became a champion. Another soldier had asked Laura if there was any way to send Arabic translations of Seabiscuit to him. He’d been reading the book, and while helping at an Iraqi school, a child had seen it and asked him about it. The soldier had told the child the story of the famous racehorse. Other kids had gathered around and listened, spellbound.
Laura had been trying to get her book translated and shipped overseas so she could donate copies to the children, and here I was trying to ship school supplies over, so it made sense that we meet. Like me, Laura wanted to support our troops and do more to help the children, yet due to a decades-long debilitating and incurable case of chronic fatigue syndrome that hits her with severe nausea and vertigo, Laura is rarely able to leave her house. Thankfully, in recent years she’s gotten a bit better, but still she’s limited to mostly staying close to home. I grew to admire this wonderfully brave and gifted person who would go on to write another bestselling book, Unbroken, about the life of World War II hero Louis Zamperini. We became fast friends and talked over our ideas.
She wanted to help the troops. I wanted to help the troops. Together we decided to start a school supply program, initially naming it Operation Iraqi Children (OIC), emphasizing the grassroots approach. We came up with a motto—“helping soldiers help children”—and created a logo of a helmet filled with school supplies. We created a website where people could go and follow guidelines about how to gather supplies and ship them over to the troops to give to the kids. I went on TV a couple more times to promote what we were doing, and Laura called her contacts. The idea began to spread, and people started to reach out to us.
What started as a simple suggestion, an encouragement to our fellow citizens to send school supplies to Iraq, quickly needed to take a new direction. We were giving people the guidelines, but we had no way of knowing if supplies were actually getting through, or what kind of supplies were being sent. I received a call from Mike Meyer, a Vietnam veteran working for the VFW. Mike had seen me talking about the program on TV and introduced Laura and me to Mary Eisenhower, granddaughter of President Dwight Eisenhower. Mary ran a humanitarian organization based in Kansas City called People to People International (PTPI), which had been started by her grandfather. She offered to partner with us and essentially fold our program into her organization. Now we were able to take supplies into our own warehouse and package and ship them ourselves. I continued to promote the program on radio and television, sending people to our website, and we began to receive supplies from people all over the country. We were also able to raise funds, allowing us to purchase additional supplies ourselves.
Mary and Mike connected us to representatives of FedEx, who offered to support our initiative by donating the shipping to Kuwait. FedEx CEO Fred Smith approved it. Getting supplies from Kuwait into Iraq was tricky. It involved more steps and higher clearance levels, so at one point I went to the Pentagon to ask for help, but with the war in full swing, it was difficult to get a consistent commitment. We worked to find as many ways as possible to get the supplies where we wanted them to go. We eventually had a good system in place.
In April 2004, we held a press conference at the airport in Kansas City saying we were ramping up efforts yet again. We developed a volunteer base, and I did benefit concerts for OIC with the Lt. Dan Band. Supplies poured in. I started talking about the program more and more on radio and TV. Even more supplies poured in. We quickly learned to create two-pound school “kits” with big plastic Ziploc bags so each child would receive roughly the same amount of supplies. Our volunteers assembled the kits, complete with pencils, erasers, and other basic school supplies. A buddy of mine from high school, Mike Fisher, owned a container supply company in Chicago and offered to donate Ziploc bags. Over the years, Mike would donate thousands of these bags to OIC.
On April 20, 2004, we shipped six hundred school kits, along with two hundred stuffed animals, for distribution to schools in Balad and Baghdad. On June 8, 2004, we shipped another two hundred kits and three hundred stuffed animals for distribution at Iman Primary School in Ishan Hamzah, Iraq. Two weeks later we shipped another six hundred kits to Hillah, Iraq. We were off and running. In 2004 alone, we made nineteen shipments—and we were only getting started.
Blankets, jackets, shoes, socks, soccer balls, art supplies, soap, and backpacks—we added all these items the next year. Items donated, or purchased through funds raised from the American people, were distributed to the children by our troops. We received a massive donation of Crocs shoes and shipped those. Year after year we kept going. It proved a very successful program.
The success was largely due to the simplicity of our overall goal. OIC was a mission of encouragement, hope, and love. The program expanded over the years to include shipments to other countries, and the name of the program was eventually changed to Operation International Children. (That way we could still call it OIC.) Yet our mission always stayed the same—helping soldiers help children. Eventually we were able to help children in Afghanistan, the Philippines, Haiti, Djibouti, and the United States, where supplies were flown to kids adversely affected by Hurricane Katrina. I pictured our program as something in the spirit of our GIs walking through a bombed-out town in Germany after World War II. They’d hand out chocolate and candy to the kids, and while those actions certainly didn’t solve all the world’s ills, the GIs’ actions had let the citizens know that the soldiers were there to help, not hurt.
Over the next few years, we received sack loads of letters from schoolkids who thanked us for the supplies, along with many other letters from soldiers, telling us the program allowed them to extend the hands of friendship to people in these communities.
We were able to establish strong relationships with soldiers on the ground, including Lieutenant Colonel Donald Fallin, who for a period of time took a lead role in distributing our supplies. Another lieutenant colonel named Drew Ryan wrote to tell us about how his troops had visited the Iraqi town of Albu Hassan where villagers had suffered tremendously under Saddam Hussein. When Saddam had wanted to build a new airfield for himself, he simply confiscated farms without ever giving the Iraqi citizens any compensation or jobs. When Saddam was ousted, Lieutenant Co
lonel Ryan arrived. Many structures in Albu Hassan were dilapidated. The elementary school was a simple mud-walled building with a palm thatched roof that birds often nested in. No running water. No heating for cold winter mornings. No air-conditioning for the hot months—not even fans—and temperatures in the area reached 130 degrees. Lieutenant Colonel Ryan and his troops rebuilt the primary school and built a completely new secondary school with ceiling fans in each room, windows with glass and screens, lights, and a new roof. Through OIC, the troops delivered pens, pencils, notebooks, maps, and soccer balls—and held medical clinics for the students and community members at the school.
One of my favorite letters came from an Iraqi teen, who wrote to us in broken English.
My name is Hadeel and I am 18 years old girl from Iraq, Baghdad. i am very greatful to your help to iraqi children . . . its nice to know there still good people in this world . . . infact you made alot of kids happy because you gave them the hope of new life and the encouragement and the feeling they are important. Id like to thank Gary sinise . . . he is realy charitable and noble man . . . i wish i could see him to thank him in the place of all iraqi children . . . thank you Gary we love so much. infact thank you all and let God bless you!
Troops told us the deliveries from OIC helped in unexpected ways. For instance, an American soldier gave a stuffed animal to a little Iraqi girl, about five years old. The next day, a convoy of American soldiers drove down the road, about five vehicles in the convoy running at about forty-five miles per hour, and they saw this same little girl in the street, still holding her stuffed animal. She wore a worried look on her face, so they pulled over to make sure everything was okay. She shifted the stuffed animal in her arms and pointed to a little mound of dirt just up the road in the direction the convoy headed. The troops checked it out. An IED was hidden in the dirt. This little girl, after receiving a stuffed animal from a US soldier, very probably saved the soldiers in that convoy from being seriously injured or killed.