In March of 2004, actor Gary Sinise (Forrest Gump, Apollo 13) and author Laura Hillenbrand (Seabiscuit: An American Legend) announced the launch of Operation Iraqi Children, a program that will enable Americans to send School Supply Kits to Iraqi children.

The Need. During and after Operation Iraqi Freedom, American soldiers passing through Iraqi villages were horrified at the squalor of Iraqi schools, which had been severely neglected under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. "Imagine sending your child to a school in which there are virtually no books, no pencils, no paper, no blackboards," says Hillenbrand. "This is the reality for Iraqi children. The future of the Iraqi nation is being squandered for lack of basic school supplies."

Moved by the plight of these children, many American soldiers have taken it upon themselves to help. Working in small groups on their days off, soldiers gather supplies sent by family members, friends, and various groups and take them to villages, sometimes coming under fire as they work to reconstruct the schools and deliver learning tools to Iraqi kids. Their efforts have met with immense gratitude from local Iraqis and their children, who now have access to the basic tools of education for the first time in their lives. "I have seen Iraqi kids climbing on our soldiers and hugging them and kissing them," remembers Sinise, who accompanied Army soldiers to a dilapidated school they were rebuilding. "I have seen their smiling faces and their attempts to say 'I love you' in broken English. The folks I saw had hope in their eyes and gratitude in their hearts for what was done for them."

Unfortunately, the need for help is so great and widespread, encompassing some 1,500 schools, that our soldiers' efforts cannot possibly answer the entire problem. The situation is critical. "The future of Iraq lies in the education of its children," says Hillenbrand. "We owe it to them, and to the hundreds of American men and women who gave their lives to bring them freedom, to give these children the basic tools of learning."

The Answer. Inspired by their conversations with Operation Iraqi Freedom soldiers as well as Sinise's tour of the region in 2003, Sinise and Hillenbrand founded Operation Iraqi Children, a grass roots program to provide concerned Americans with a means to reach out to Iraqi kids and help support our soldiers' efforts to assist the Iraqi people.