Yesterday the DoD announced that the Reserve can send Soldiers out to Haiti! I am so excited. Obviously I can't go since I am expecting a little one, but I know some Soldiers who would love to go.

Public Affairs teams are getting formed right now so I'll be excited to see the great coverage our Reserve journalists put together.

After seeing the images, and news, and hearing about one woman's survival under the rubble for more than 50 hours, I just can't believe how amazing the strength of the human spirit can be! I am worried about the looters and armed gunmen running around because it will leave the young and old to fend for themselves. No matter how much the United Nations tries to assist, you can't get the food to the people if there is interference from bad guys. Same happened in Iraq when I was there, and I'm sure we will see more in Haiti.

Hopefully, with the help from all the countries, they can establish security there and get things under an organized chaos to enable rebuilding. Seems like it will take quite a while before that happens. My heart goes out to everyone there and everyone helping out.

I wanted to share some information in case you don't have it:

• The State Dept Operations Center has set up the following telephone number for Americans seeking information about family members in Haiti: 1-888-407-4747.
• The American Red Cross honors donor intent. If you wish to designate your donation to a specific disaster, please do so at the time of your donation by mailing your donation with the designation to the American Red Cross, P.O. Box 37243, Washington, D.C. 20013 or to your local American Red Cross chapter. Donations to the International Response Fund can be made by phone at 1-800-REDCROSS or 1-800-257-7575 (Spanish) or online at www.redcross.org.

*Also, I put a link to the 302 MPAD blog on my previous post. We are moving it to a .mil site where it belongs (I made a boo-boo with that one). So I'll update the link once we get it where it's supposed to go.