Foundation launch honors fallen soldier
By Bill Walsh
SPC Ross A. McGinnis died in Iraq in December, 2006, killed instantly when he smothered a grenade with his body in order to save the lives of four other soldiers who shared the humvee with him. The 19-year-old soldier was posthumously awarded the U.S. Army Medal of Honor last month, one of only a handful of soldiers from the Iraq war to be so honored.
His family will never forget his act of selfless heroism. His platoon won't forget, nor the four men whose lives he shielded.
None of the rest of us will, either, if Galynn Wilkins has her way.
Midland residents Wilkins and Diane Griest have established the Village To Village Foundation, and though still in its infancy and fine-tuning its mission, raising and using funds to help returning soldiers who are struggling with post traumatic stress disorder is the major thrust.
"Actually, we just initially thought we would create an endowment fund in his name," said Griest.
"We knew it would be used for veterans, in some manner, but in the beginning we didn't have an exact purpose," Wilkins added. "We wanted to get his family involved in the process."
The pair contacted the parents last December, a year after their son's death.
"Mr. McGinnis shared with me what he would like to see the endowment do," Wilkins recalled. "He is very concerned about the soldiers who are returning from war and struggling with PTSD, which is really a catch-all for everything — drug abuse, family abuse, inability to hold down a job."
The whole difficulty, she said, is "a lack of recognition of the larger picture." and, Griest added, exemplifies a "use you and abuse you" mentality.
The Village To Village Foundation directors are quick to point out that theirs is no condemnation of the military, neither explicit nor implied. Griest is an Air Force veteran, Wilkins a decorated former Army officer. Another board member served with distinction in the U.S. Navy.
"This is neither supporting nor indicting anybody," Griest said. "It's about need."
"These young children are being sent to cities all over Iraq with M-16s," Wilkins continued. "We are training them to shoot at other people who don't have on another uniform. Then they come home and go to our cities, and who knows if they've been affected."
The military has developed a debriefing process, and returning soldiers take psychological tests that are designed to indicate whether or not they need additional help. But soldiers share ways to pass the test so they can get home. " They want to see their families," Wilkins said.
"If they know how to pass the test, it's not really a true test about how stable they are or what kind of counseling they might need," Griest said.
As currently envisioned, the McGinnis Fund would enable assistance on an individual level.
"We have a lot of military contacts, and we are getting more and more as word gets out," Wilkins said. "We're looking along the lines of if someone is in contact with a priest or a minister or a therapist, and at that point they are having trouble meeting mortgage payments or utilities, or they need to pay for some counseling or training over and above what the military is giving them, I think that is where we need to step in."
More than that, Wilkins and Griest want to keep the name and spirit of SPC Ross A. McGinnis alive.
"My motivation was I wanted Ross to live forever," Wilkins said. "The character it took for him to do that, I just think that is something that we need to embrace a little more.
"We have been wracking our brains about how to do that, and the Pay a Good Deed Forward program...we thought, let's put Ross' picture on this."
The foundation has commissioned wooden Pay A Good Deed Forward tokens with McGinnis' likeness. Do a good deed for someone else, and give them the token for them to return the favor to another.
The tokens are also a fundraising mechanism, given out in return for donations, and preparations are underway for others — Scouts, church groups, families — to suggest and sponsor tokens in honor of other fallen soldiers.
The Ross A. McGinnis Endowment Fund may be the main thrust of the Village To Village Foundation, but it's not the only one, even as the foundation struggles to get a start.
Each member of the four-person board was asked to name a cause, and the foundation now stands as an umbrella organization for breast cancer, autism, holiday and general-fund assistance pools.
These funds will work in the same way, Griest said — that is, on an individual level. The money will be spent locally.
Money from the breast cancer fund, for example, won't go to a national organization working on a cure, for instance, but will be used to help uninsured or underinsured Fauquier women meet their bills if they can't work, or, perhaps, help them purchase wigs and prostheses.
The breast cancer fund has already seen its first project through to completion, finding a computer for a homeschooled cancer patient.
Wilkins, Griest and the other directors — Michelle Connolly and Liz Howard — are hoping that the concept takes on a life of its own — village to village — and that similar nonprofit groups will grow elsewhere in the country, networked loosely together.
"This is about people," Wilkins said. "People are connected.
The Village To Village Foundation can be reached at (540) 439-8285. Its Web site is www.villagetovillagefoundation.org.