After almost a year of communicating with Americans serving in Iraq, Jim Hake made his first trip to the country this May as a guest of the Marines and civilian representative of his nonprofit organization, Spirit of America (SoA). Founded last year with the mission of helping Americans serving abroad to improve the lives of people in need, SoA is now working with a network of Iraqis to ‘support people and ideas that can make a difference in Iraq,’ Hake said. The Palisades resident gained national attention in April when The Wall Street Journal ran an editorial page feature on Hake’s campaign to raise $100,000 to help Marines establish Iraqi-owned TV stations in Al Anbar province, west of Baghdad. The article by Dan Henninger generated an enormous donor response; SoA received $764,408 from 4,088 donors in five days. The organization has now raised $1.1 million for the television project and $1.8 million overall since mid-April. As a result of this outpouring, Hake decided to increase the scope and scale of SoA’s activities in Iraq, which required traveling there to network and focus SoA’s strategy. Before leaving for Iraq on May 27, Hake attended a training session at Camp Pendleton that included safety/security issues, military procedure and a briefing on local culture. ‘I was instructed on ways to interact and not interact, and how to be culturally sensitive, such as not wearing sunglasses when talking to people,’ Hake said. He also learned about certain explosive devices that may be planted by the side of the road”what to look for and who to tell”and received protective gear to wear in Iraq. ‘It was the same training embedded journalists go through,’ said Hake, the father of two sons (ages 9 and 6). He and his wife, Kristy, a painter and photographer, have lived here since 1996. Hake first traveled to Amman, Jordan, where he met up with Lt. Col. David Couvillon, who worked with SoA last summer, and two retired members of U.S. Special Forces. They then flew to Baghdad for a day before heading west to Fallujah (30 miles) and Ramadi (60 miles), two of the most dangerous areas in Iraq today. ‘The basic purpose of the trip was to understand what SoA could do to effect the most immediate and, hopefully, lasting improvement in most Iraqis’ lives through forms of support by American people,’ Hake said. He also wanted to determine the best approach for having SoA personnel in the country to support the organization’s expanded activities. Some of the Iraqis he met with (from the Ministerial level to local leaders and ‘ordinary’ people) included an imam (religious teacher) in Ramadi, the head of the Iraqi Olympic Committee and Coalition Provision Authority (CPA) personnel, as well as civilians in three surrounding villages. ‘Some folks spoke English and some required an interpreter,’ Hake said. ‘They understood I was a civilian representing private citizens in the U.S. interested in finding out how they could be of help, that there is a set of people on the other side of world very interested and committed to a better future for them, and it’s not an issue of politics.’ Hake’s conversations with Iraqis and with Americans serving abroad focused on 1) things that would be helpful as a sign of goodwill and friendship, such as soccer balls or shoes for kids in rural areas and 2) things that can help provide substantial improvement. For example, economic development programs such as job training and microfinancing to get businesses off the ground and equipment for various projects related to employment, housing and construction. In Ramadi, Hake met with the Director of Economic Development for Al Anbar province, who is spearheading the creation of women’s sewing centers in the Ramadi-Fallujah region. This will provide women with a chance to make money (some for the first time) as well as clothes for themselves and their families. While Hake was there, he distributed school supplies, soccer balls and Frisbees donated by SoA and the organization’s supporters earlier this year. ‘The adults and children were happy to see us, happy to talk and play. And, like children anywhere (at least mine!), happy to get gifts,’ Hake wrote in a SoA newsletter update. ‘The women of the community made flatbread for us during the visit….Clearly, not every visit to neighborhood in Iraq would be like that one, but it was one of those nice human moments. It was also instructive to see how the Marines operate and relate to local communities. Very impressive.’ In Fallujah, Hake spent time at a center where Iraqi civilians meet with Marines to work on civil affairs and rebuilding projects. The center also serves as a training site for the Iraq Civil Defense Corps. ‘There I had a chance to discuss with the son of a local sheikh [the leader of an Arab village or family] ideas for a neighborhood sports program that SoA is considering supporting,’ Hake wrote. The program would make it possible for about 30,000 kids, ages 13 through 19, to play soccer later this year. ‘In many cases we won’t be going through the Americans in the military but working with Iraqi civilians,’ Hake told the Palisadian-Post. He also updated SoA’s media project featured in The Wall Street Journal. ‘The TV equipment is being delivered and installed, and technical training is being planned,’ he said, adding that Iraqi reporters are interested in journalism training programs. ‘With the new equipment, Iraqi personnel at one of the stations took to the streets with camcorders to do ‘man in the street’ interviews,’ Hake wrote. ‘When they broadcast the interviews, they received numerous calls with positive feedback. Ahmad Al-Rikaby, a London-based correspondent for Radio Free Iraq, recently started a popular talk radio in Iraq called Radio Dijla. ‘Media professionals in Iraq don’t have a long history of media freedom,’ said Hake, who also networked with Iraqis who run Web sites in English as well as Arabic. ‘Providing a way for people to talk and complain about what they have on their minds is an ingenious idea.’ After being in Iraq, Hake sees ‘great potential for country that is free, peaceful and prosperous’ and encourages Americans to support Iraqis in this goal. ‘While some [Iraqis] may have beefs with the American government, what they have with the American people is different,’ he said. ‘There’s a huge opportunity for that citizen-to-citizen connection.The vast majority of Iraqis aren’t deeply concerned about matters of policy but about a better way of life’what you or I would wish for the country.’ However, Hake also realizes the situation in Iraq is difficult and dangerous. ‘Each time we left base [Camp Blue Diamond at Ramadi] to visit a local village or community we were briefed on recent threats to Marine convoys (usually from IEDs’Improvised Explosive Devices),’ Hake wrote. ‘Attacks are not constant, but occur often enough to restrict the military’s freedom of movement and action. To get around requires traveling in armed Humvee convoys or helicopters.’ Referring to the recent assassination of Iraq’s Minister of Education, Kamal al Jarrah, Hake said, ‘People in Iraq are more susceptible to assassination, which discourages anyone else from stepping up. The key lies in Iraqis’ taking responsibility for the country, but if they’re at risk, it makes it harder.’ Since returning from Iraq on June 4, Hake and his seven-person staff have been fleshing out plans and thinking strategically about how they can invest in projects over there to make the biggest difference. The projects currently support Marines, Army, Air Force and SeaBees. ‘We are still assessing the best way to structure our in-country presence,’ Hake wrote. ‘In any scenario much of our work will be managed and executed by Iraqis (and we are developing good contacts in that regard).’ For more information or to make a donation, go to www.spiritofamerica.net or call 1-800-691-2209.
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