A Rising Blogger - Award

On August 7, 2008, a post on A Soldier's Mother received this note:

Hi Soldier’s Mother -

Congratulations! Your post from July 31, 2008 titled “Two Rights Don’t Make a Wrong ” has been selected as our Post of the Day on “The Rising Blogger”. It is a site that awards posts, not blogs. We will email your winning badge to post in your sidebar and all our info, if you contact us with your email address. You have won this award because we truly feel you deserve it. To reach “The Rising Blogger” site: http://therisingblogger.blogspot.com/

Here's what they wrote:

The Chinese philospher Lao-Tzu once said "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step".

This is what A Soldier's Mother has done. This blog was started by a mom to follow her son Elie, a young soldier. He began his 3 years of military service in the Israeli army in March 2007.

As I went through this blog made me realize how little I really know about Israel and their way of life. All that I have seen are what the Western news media reports and it is almost always the most negative aspects that they show. But of course, anyone who is in contact with people of a country can hear different stories! Blogs at their best, can be powerful transmitters of understanding.

This blog is very universal in it's feeling. All mothers miss their sons when they go off to the armed forces, no matter what country or culture you are from. And yes, deep down, each Mom does battle her own fears. Mother says, "Perhaps, despite the worries, my son is right. This is an adventure, a new road he will take. I should be excited for him. I should be (and I am) very proud of him. In other countries, 19 year old boys are drinking and driving and focusing on girls. It will be years before they grow up while here in Israel, they are given responsibility, life and death decisions."

Mother shares her world with the good times including the joys of phone calls and of too-short visits, and the bad times that return when the news reports are once again scary. But, more than once, Mother pushes her fears back. In her words she "decided to be a mother who welcomes my son home with happiness, but more importantly, one who keeps the fears and worries from overwhelming him…"

It was eventually one of Mother's recent posts called Two Rights Don't Make a Wrong, that I honor with The Rising Blogger's Post of the Day. I invite everyone to read Mother's post. This is about about young men and women in the Israeli army, and how her son made his own choice concerning this.

lt is a very thought-provoking post.

Congratulations to A Soldier's Mother from Barbara at The Rising Blogger!