February 13, 2013
A 7-year-old’s message to soldiers and veterans who don’t want to go on living
Writing for the Huffington Post, Eleanor Goldberg wrote this story about a compassionate second grader, John Murray, Jr., who, upon learning that some soldiers contemplate suicide, decided to remind them of something they need to do: “Ask for help.” Included with the article is a short NBC-News video in which the boy is interviewed. You can read the complete story, as told by the boy’s mother in a letter to Lt. Gen. Patricia Horoho who has posted it on the official website of the U.S. Army. I found the mother’s letter not only compelling in itself but as providing a wonderful example of wise parenting— taking advantage of a teachable moment to help a child learn facts, compassion, and empathy in terms he could easily understand and that prompted in him a desire to do something.
