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The Rifle Volunteers
I was thinking of Pipkins recently and I remembered something I wrote back in 2004. I buffed it up a little and here it is, in her honor.
* * * * *
The Rifle Volunteers [2004]
I met some British officers last winter. Nice guys who thought they might like to help out at Dzegvi Children’s Home. We took a bunch of them out there, they seemed interested, then we lost contact.
Have you ever met any Brits? For me, only a small handful over my lifetime, and no soldiers at all. I know they exist. I’ve seen them on TV and read about them in books. They’ve got a queen and real royalty, they talk different, there was that Boston Tea Party thing. They’re sort of there, but they’re not. They had about as much relevancy to my life as the Mars rover. Until two weeks ago.
It turns out that those British officers didn’t forget. They remembered the children. Their follow-on team got in touch with me. The new batch of them, here for a training exercise for the Georgian army, wanted to see Dzegvi for themselves.
They are from a unit called “The Rifle Volunteers”. To me, used to such ordinary names as 1st Division, 2nd Armored and the like, that is a real army name. A bunch of them are in Iraq these days, but these guys were here from England to train Georgian infantry. They are from the southwest five counties of England. Their officers are Eddie, Mick and Spanner. Spanner. Now there’s a grunt’s name. Their sainted quartermaster is Brian.
I have disgracefully forgotten the name of their sergeant-major. I can only apologize and hope that someone will remind me. Tall, strong impressive fellow (aren’t all sergeants-major impressive?), covered with tattoos, “evidence of a misspent youth” he says. Yeah, that’s the guy. There’s one in every movie, right? The guy who said to me, when there weren’t very many children there at the start of our visit, “Good thing, too, or I might cry me eyes out”. No kidding. Tough guy.
We took them out to Dzegvi twice. You should have seen them. Several of the photos turned out better than I could have hoped, but there is one in particular: Eddie, in fatigues, is bending way over to spoon-feed a little girl. It will be on next year’s calendar, if Eddie allows me. It will be on my wall at home for the rest of my life.
Did I mention that these guys all have serious combat experience? They do, much of it in the hellholes of Northern Ireland. They know what the worst of the world looks like. They’ve been there. They are also shining examples of how we can all, any of us if we really want to, come out of the worst of life and still offer the world a glimpse of the best. Eddie, if you ever read this, please know that that particular picture will always have a special place in my heart. So will you and your mates.
Then they had to go home. If I’m really lucky, I’ll get to meet them again someday. Before they went home they visited me at the hotel. Twice. Well, not exactly visited. Twice they brought a truckload -- truckload – of things like food, supplies and warm things for the kids. Right now, as I’m writing this, I can look around my room at all the things they brought, piled high in every corner. Although they couldn’t get out to Telavi, they OK’d my request to divide the goodies up between the two homes. So now, two homes will benefit from their loving generosity.
What’s more, their lads – they say things like “lads”, and “cuppa” and my own favorite “you lot” – gave extravagantly from their own pockets. When times get cold and lean this winter, we’ll have some extra cash to help the kids make it through. British cash, from British soldiers, most of whom never got to see even one of the children they helped. I’ll try to make up for that a little by sending them some photos, giving them a page on our site and posting that Ofoto photo album.
There’s more. The British embassy’s defense attaché here, Chris (that would be Lt. Col. Chris Nunn, OBE, Royal Marines – also a helicopter pilot, poor lad) is coming with us on Wednesday when we take the supplies out to Dzegvi. Another tough guy, Falklands and Northern Ireland vet and God only knows where else. It will be his first visit to one of the homes and he wants to see what all the fuss is about. Tough guys are such easy touches.
Pat Shearing, a kind and terrific British military advisor here (could I make that up?) is coming with us to Dzegvi on Wednesday, too. She told me a story tonight about a soldier in The Rifle Volunteers who was here. Enlisted woman, young mother, an Army cook, working very long hard hours for darn little pay. She wanted to do something for the kids. So she did. She donated a hundred bucks. A hundred bucks. Her comment? “These kids don’t have anything. I’m going home and I’ll get some more money.” Ma’am, from all of us, and from all of the kids who have no way to say it, thank you and God bless you.
Here’s just one more anecdote. The Brits gave some of their own uniforms to the kids. Well, mostly to the kids. There is a volunteer doctor at Dzegvi, name of Kakha, who lives the same poor life as the children. Kakha got a fatigue shirt. He was so proud and happy. The sergeant-major called him over, took the rank insignia off of his own uniform and put it on Kakha’s new fatigue shirt. If Kakha was proud before, he was absolutely beside himself then. That’s the kind of guys these Brits are. They would give, they did give, some very poor people the shirts off their backs. You just can’t make up those kinds of stories.
All of this – food, warm things, money, shirts off their backs – and what was Eddie’s parting comment? “I’m just sorry we couldn’t do more.” You did your share, mates, and more. It’s enough for today. I hope you had a decent trip back. The people you touched here will never forget you. God willing, we’ll meet again.
* * * * *
I met some British officers last winter. Nice guys who thought they might like to help out at Dzegvi Children’s Home. We took a bunch of them out there, they seemed interested, then we lost contact.
Have you ever met any Brits? For me, only a small handful over my lifetime, and no soldiers at all. I know they exist. I’ve seen them on TV and read about them in books. They’ve got a queen and real royalty, they talk different, there was that Boston Tea Party thing. They’re sort of there, but they’re not. They had about as much relevancy to my life as the Mars rover. Until two weeks ago.
It turns out that those British officers didn’t forget. They remembered the children. Their follow-on team got in touch with me. The new batch of them, here for a training exercise for the Georgian army, wanted to see Dzegvi for themselves.
They are from a unit called “The Rifle Volunteers”. To me, used to such ordinary names as 1st Division, 2nd Armored and the like, that is a real army name. A bunch of them are in Iraq these days, but these guys were here from England to train Georgian infantry. They are from the southwest five counties of England. Their officers are Eddie, Mick and Spanner. Spanner. Now there’s a grunt’s name. Their sainted quartermaster is Brian.
I have disgracefully forgotten the name of their sergeant-major. I can only apologize and hope that someone will remind me. Tall, strong impressive fellow (aren’t all sergeants-major impressive?), covered with tattoos, “evidence of a misspent youth” he says. Yeah, that’s the guy. There’s one in every movie, right? The guy who said to me, when there weren’t very many children there at the start of our visit, “Good thing, too, or I might cry me eyes out”. No kidding. Tough guy.
We took them out to Dzegvi twice. You should have seen them. Several of the photos turned out better than I could have hoped, but there is one in particular: Eddie, in fatigues, is bending way over to spoon-feed a little girl. It will be on next year’s calendar, if Eddie allows me. It will be on my wall at home for the rest of my life.
Did I mention that these guys all have serious combat experience? They do, much of it in the hellholes of Northern Ireland. They know what the worst of the world looks like. They’ve been there. They are also shining examples of how we can all, any of us if we really want to, come out of the worst of life and still offer the world a glimpse of the best. Eddie, if you ever read this, please know that that particular picture will always have a special place in my heart. So will you and your mates.
Then they had to go home. If I’m really lucky, I’ll get to meet them again someday. Before they went home they visited me at the hotel. Twice. Well, not exactly visited. Twice they brought a truckload -- truckload – of things like food, supplies and warm things for the kids. Right now, as I’m writing this, I can look around my room at all the things they brought, piled high in every corner. Although they couldn’t get out to Telavi, they OK’d my request to divide the goodies up between the two homes. So now, two homes will benefit from their loving generosity.
What’s more, their lads – they say things like “lads”, and “cuppa” and my own favorite “you lot” – gave extravagantly from their own pockets. When times get cold and lean this winter, we’ll have some extra cash to help the kids make it through. British cash, from British soldiers, most of whom never got to see even one of the children they helped. I’ll try to make up for that a little by sending them some photos, giving them a page on our site and posting that Ofoto photo album.
There’s more. The British embassy’s defense attaché here, Chris (that would be Lt. Col. Chris Nunn, OBE, Royal Marines – also a helicopter pilot, poor lad) is coming with us on Wednesday when we take the supplies out to Dzegvi. Another tough guy, Falklands and Northern Ireland vet and God only knows where else. It will be his first visit to one of the homes and he wants to see what all the fuss is about. Tough guys are such easy touches.
Pat Shearing, a kind and terrific British military advisor here (could I make that up?) is coming with us to Dzegvi on Wednesday, too. She told me a story tonight about a soldier in The Rifle Volunteers who was here. Enlisted woman, young mother, an Army cook, working very long hard hours for darn little pay. She wanted to do something for the kids. So she did. She donated a hundred bucks. A hundred bucks. Her comment? “These kids don’t have anything. I’m going home and I’ll get some more money.” Ma’am, from all of us, and from all of the kids who have no way to say it, thank you and God bless you.
Here’s just one more anecdote. The Brits gave some of their own uniforms to the kids. Well, mostly to the kids. There is a volunteer doctor at Dzegvi, name of Kakha, who lives the same poor life as the children. Kakha got a fatigue shirt. He was so proud and happy. The sergeant-major called him over, took the rank insignia off of his own uniform and put it on Kakha’s new fatigue shirt. If Kakha was proud before, he was absolutely beside himself then. That’s the kind of guys these Brits are. They would give, they did give, some very poor people the shirts off their backs. You just can’t make up those kinds of stories.
All of this – food, warm things, money, shirts off their backs – and what was Eddie’s parting comment? “I’m just sorry we couldn’t do more.” You did your share, mates, and more. It’s enough for today. I hope you had a decent trip back. The people you touched here will never forget you. God willing, we’ll meet again.
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