Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2009/02/27

[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]

Subject: [Leica] How the LTM windfall came about...
From: kennybod at mac.com (Ken Frazier)
Date: Fri Feb 27 05:07:42 2009

Leica friends,

I thought it might be appropriate to let you know how this windfall came to 
be.

The man who brought these to my office was the father of a Marine killed in 
Iraq last year, one of my parishioners.  For weeks following the son's 
death, in numerous painful meetings with Marine Corps representatives, his 
company commander who flew in from Iraq, having to review painful documents, 
signing insurance papers, etc. -- for all that time, and months after, I was 
with the family 5 or 6 days a week, sometimes for an hour, sometimes for 
half a day, trying to do my best to hold them together, helping them 
negotiate the red tape, keeping them from doing something stupid, reading 
reports they could not bear to read, taking their anger when they had no one 
else to vent on, and it continues to this day, the work I do with them and 
for them.

I do not write this to make it sound as if I deserve anything.  I suppose I 
write to let you all know how good it is to know that "you are there," and I 
can share in some way my good fortune with you.  I also write this to make 
sure we all know the costs of a stupid and bloody and senseless war.  The 
father's grateful gift to me was tinged with bitterness, as all true gifts 
are, in a way.  

So, yes, these cameras and lenses will be used, not put on a shelf.  I will 
honor the gift.

my peace to us all,

Ken
---------------------------------------
sent via .mac webmail from:

Ken Frazier
Senior Minister
First Congregational Church
Waterbury, Connecticut
---------------------------------------


Replies: Reply from chs2018 at med.cornell.edu (Chris Saganich) ([Leica] How the LTM windfall came about...)
Reply from h_arche at yahoo.com (H. Ball Arche) ([Leica] How the LTM windfall came about...)
Reply from jan at gviolins.com (Jan van Rooyen) ([Leica] How the LTM windfall came about...)