HELP AND HEROISM IN A TIME OF CRISIS.(Mary Spaulding Balch)(Brief Article)

As I write these remarks it is less than 24 hours since the United States and Great Britain first struck several dozen military targets in Afghanistan. By the time this edition of National Right to Life News reaches your home, much will have changed. Like you, I am praying for President Bush and for our great nation.

Like aftershocks that follow an earthquake, the aftermath of the terrorist bombings in New York City and Virginia continue to roil our nation's life. Fortunately, as a people, we are characterized by an absolutely unique combination of self-sufficiency and utter willingness to help others yet be helped in times of great trouble.

While there are and will continue to be great uncertainties, we are blessed by constants that never change. Some of them involve people just like you, who know a thing or three about tragedy. Let me tell you a true story that was told to me by Mary Spaulding Balch, the director of state legislation for National Right to Life.

In Mary's words, it was a mother's worst nightmare. When the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked, Mary's nine-year-old daughter, Bridget, was in Paris accompanied with Mary's sister and Mary's father-in-law. Neither her sister nor her father-in-law spoke French.

Mary told me her first thought was that there would be similar terrorist attacks on civilians in Europe. (The French army shared her intuition: Within minutes, soldiers were everywhere on the streets of Paris.) Like countless others, it proved impossible for Mary to reach her family overseas.

Frantic, Mary wanted them moved to an English-speaking country, at a minimum. But all international flights had been immediately cancelled as word (and pictures) of the terrorist bombings were shown around the world.

By the next day (Wednesday), Mary's already considerable anxieties had multiplied many times over. "Everything was in French, of course, and it was like they were marooned," she remembered.