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Tag: Humanitarian

Greg Mortenson: Tea Stains and Hollow Stones

Published on April 26, 2011

Like countless others, I am heart-broken and viscerally angry since learning the news of Greg Mortenson’s conflation, exaggeration and fabrication of many of the stories and details in his two best-selling books “Three Cups of Tea” and “Stones in Schools”.

Mortenson, a former emergency room trauma nurse, former mountain climber, Nobel Peace Prize-nominated author, and co-founder of the Central Asia Institute (CAI), created a reputation as a quixotic humanitarian activist. And became an unlikely champion for girls’ education globally and building bridges to peace by constructing schools. His books sold more than 4 million copies and were standard reading for US service members deploying to Afghanistan. He consulted regularly with US military leadership on engagement of Pashtun tribesman.

In a decade of war news, economic turmoil, and frequent natural disasters, that the media gladly reported on and we, the public devoured; his were the on-going feel-good stories that rose above the cynicism and disillusionment.

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Honored Role Series (Part 8): Col. Terry Walters, MD – Navigating Uncharted Waters

Published on January 8, 2010

This is the eight installment in the weekly Honored Role Series.

Before turning 10, Terry Tepper took the helm of the family’s 40-foot wooden yacht and steered into Barbados harbor, “My father handed me the tiller and said, ‘take her in’. He folded his arms, sat down on the bow and smiled. I backed the sails and steered her in. It was the greatest gift a child could receive — responsibility, confidence, and the first taste of empowerment.”

Four decades later, successfully at the helm of the U.S. Army’s largest medical facility, Womack Army Medical Center at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Colonel Terry Tepper Walters, M.D., reflects upon several horizons she navigated.

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Honored Role Series (Part 4): Jen Boggs – US Soldier turned UN Peacekeeper

Published on November 20, 2009

This is the fourth installment in the weekly Honored Role Series.

“It is amazing how more alike we are than we are different,” said Jen Boggs, Coordination Officer in the Office of the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping at the United Nations. “The vast majority of people from all backgrounds want the same things: to live in a safe society that provides a system of justice, to know that their children will have a better left than they did, and to have a voice in the world.” Jen should know. She has worked extensively in places such as Korea, Bosnia, Hungary, Italy, Sudan, Iraq, Haiti, Cote d ‘Ivoire, and Liberia as a military officer and as a UN peacekeeper.

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