From Ardmore to Afghanistan, a mission of giving

An unusual peace process will play out soon in Afghanistan.

There will be no shiny limos, or summits for talking heads.

The diplomacy will turn on an everyday item: a child's knit cap, stuffed in a U.S. soldier's rucksack and given to a ragged Afghan youngster for battling the biting cold.

The goodwill gesture is called Operation Angel Wings, and it's the brainchild of an Ardmore shopkeeper and a Broomall trauma surgeon stationed in Afghanistan, Lt. Col. Kenneth Marx.

"Someday those kids will grow up to place their finger on a trigger," Marx said in an e-mail. "The moment when the target in their sights resembles the guys who once gave them a winter cap is that moment when reconciliation might hold violence at bay.

"Life in the mountains here is nasty, brutish, and utterly strange. Soft power and indirect means may be the winding path to an improvised solution, if there is a solution to be found."

Writing from Nangarhar province, where he is deployed with the National Guard's 108th Cavalry, Marx said the immediate aim was to get Americans and Afghans talking.

"We have asked for folks at home to send small gifts of winter clothing, which are excellent conversation-starters," he said.

When he arrived in Afghanistan on Oct. 12, Marx said, he saw a need for children's hats, gloves, sweaters, socks, scarves, fleece jackets, and small, lightweight toys that could go with soldiers on patrol.

On Nov. 9, Marx received an e-mail from Sherry Tillman, 6,824 miles away in Ardmore, inviting him to the holiday sale at her gift and art-gallery store. He wrote back, saying he couldn't attend and asking if she could send warm clothes for the Afghan children.

"He wrote me that the kids are barefoot and in rags, and it's winter," Tillman said. She said she recalled thinking, "Oh, my God, I have to do something."

Sponsored by First Friday Main Line, a nonprofit organization that promotes the Lancaster Avenue shopping district, Operation Angel Wings began immediately.

Tillman, director of First Friday Main Line, said she was determined to collect everything on Marx's wish list. The gifts will be stored at her shop, Past*Present*Future, and the Ardmore Initiative office, both on Lancaster Avenue.

Tillman has set Friday as the shipping date for the first donations.

"I'd like to be able to send several packages right away, and to be able to continue sending," Tillman said.

A couple of weeks ago, Carla J. Zambelli, publicist for First Friday Main Line, sent out an e-mail blast asking residents for donations. The donations have started trickling in, Tillman said.

Kathleen Abplanalp of Wynnewood was moved to action. She bought small, colorful children's clothes and toys, which she took to Tillman's store. The items are in the first carton, being readied for shipping.

"All I could think of was those little kids that have nothing, not a Matchbox toy or a Beanie Baby," said Abplanalp, a mother of two. "It's something so easy that I could do, and it's not that expensive."

In addition to customers, Tillman has asked local churches, thrift shops, and social clubs for donations. Tillman said she had received 20 e-mail messages expressing interest.

A physician in the emergency room at Reading Hospital when he is Stateside, Marx joined the Army Reserve a few days after 9/11, at 48. He accepted the combat deployment, his first, when another physician fell ill.

What he has seen of conditions in Afghanistan has amazed and troubled him, Marx wrote, and one of the stresses of combat is seeing so many needy Afghans and having nothing to offer them.

"It is a physical and emotional power wash," he wrote. "Thirty years of continuous warfare punctuated by periods of indifference have left the country in ruins."

On his first day in Afghanistan, he mistakenly boarded a helicopter taking him to Kunar province, where much of the fighting is occurring.

"On my first day, I could see from all angles how most of the country is absolutely uninhabitable," he wrote.

Nangarhar, the gateway from Pakistan to central Afghanistan, where the 108th is based, is a "relatively quiet" part of the war zone, Marx said.

"There is constant military air traffic overhead, and everyone around me carries a gun," Marx wrote. "I wonder what it will feel like when I get home and go out onto a golf course."

What is being sought

Children's winter hats, fleeces, scarves, sweaters, gloves, socks, long-sleeved athletic wear.

Toys the size of Matchbox cars, and Beanie Babies.

Adult reading glasses and towels.

All must be clean and lightweight.

Donation points in Ardmore

Ardmore Initiative, 56 E. Lancaster Ave. Past*Present*Future, 15 W. Lancaster Ave.

For online donations to defray shipping costs, visit www.firstfridaymainline.com . For more information, call 610-642-4040.

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