To the bone
Speaking of Vietnam, I remember a friend telling me that the coldest he’d ever been was one rainy night as a soldier in the Vietnamese highlands during the war there. I thought of that when I saw a fundraising appeal from some retired Special Forces soldiers for students in the mountains of Thailand. (At the ...
Speaking of Vietnam, I remember a friend telling me that the coldest he'd ever been was one rainy night as a soldier in the Vietnamese highlands during the war there. I thought of that when I saw a fundraising appeal from some retired Special Forces soldiers for students in the mountains of Thailand. (At the hyperlinked site, click on "Operation Warm Blanket.") After one child died of cold three years ago, the retiree group started buying them blankets. They also provide good students from remote areas with bicycles to get to school. It is not often that a mere $5 can make a real improvement in the quality of someone's life. So if you take a sandwich to work tomorrow, and send in the lunch money you would have spent, you will make a difference in the lives of two kids.
HOANG DINH NAM/Getty Images
Speaking of Vietnam, I remember a friend telling me that the coldest he’d ever been was one rainy night as a soldier in the Vietnamese highlands during the war there. I thought of that when I saw a fundraising appeal from some retired Special Forces soldiers for students in the mountains of Thailand. (At the hyperlinked site, click on “Operation Warm Blanket.”) After one child died of cold three years ago, the retiree group started buying them blankets. They also provide good students from remote areas with bicycles to get to school. It is not often that a mere $5 can make a real improvement in the quality of someone’s life. So if you take a sandwich to work tomorrow, and send in the lunch money you would have spent, you will make a difference in the lives of two kids.
HOANG DINH NAM/Getty Images
More from Foreign Policy


Is Cold War Inevitable?
A new biography of George Kennan, the father of containment, raises questions about whether the old Cold War—and the emerging one with China—could have been avoided.


So You Want to Buy an Ambassadorship
The United States is the only Western government that routinely rewards mega-donors with top diplomatic posts.


Can China Pull Off Its Charm Offensive?
Why Beijing’s foreign-policy reset will—or won’t—work out.


Turkey’s Problem Isn’t Sweden. It’s the United States.
Erdogan has focused on Stockholm’s stance toward Kurdish exile groups, but Ankara’s real demand is the end of U.S. support for Kurds in Syria.