Tweet To Remind (But I’m Reminding You On Tumblr)

Just donated to TweetToRemind - a Twitter campaign launched by Bob & Lee Woodruff to raise money the Bob Woodruff Foundation, which helps injured soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Remind.org is the foundations’ awareness-raising arm. Here’s the goal:

In honor of Memorial Day (5/25) this year, please consider a donation of $5.25 or more and support our courageous troops. With your help, we hope to raise 1.65 million dollars, a goal which symbolizes 1 dollar for every soldier who has served since 9/11.

So far they’ve raised $33,998.60, but the larger TweetToRemind campaign goes until July 4th, so there’s still time to meet that goal.

Bob and Lee Woodruff have been just tireless in promoting their cause (you probably recall that Bob was severely injured while reporting from Iraq, and sustained near-fatal damage from an IED explosion, including brain injury - hence their focus on injured and wounded returning veteranas, who are so in need of care and support). They’ve also been super-savvy - in addition to this harnessing the power of new media this way (this campaign has been all over Twitter and that other media, the MSM, lately), they have rallied their highly-placed friends and contacts to put their money where their mouth is and support them, too. I’ve been at both of their annual “Stand Up For Heroes” fundraiser events - for a media-who’s who of a paying audience, plus a huge contingent of military servicepeople from all over the country - and they have really been amazing events, featuring talent like Conan O’Brien, Whoopi Goldberg, Robin Williams and - both years - Bruce Springsteen, who not only did an awesome set through which he told adorably corny dirty jokes, he also donated a motorcycle each year to be auctioned off (and in last November’s event, rode it on stage which was probably not entirely within the safety codes, but which the audience loved). Springsteen doing “Thunder Road” to a hushed crowd in the Town Hall was really something to see, and I got to see it twice. And also to hear his joke about a masturbating cow.

Anyhow, I thought about all that when I went to the TweetToRemind website and saw the pic above - I remember seeing those two soldiers taking pics with people beforehand, and being struck by the kind of damage they had sustained and how that was just a drop in the bucket. Conan went with the Woodruffs to Walter Reade and did this really super-moving video with patients there (alas, I can’t find it online - I think there were some complex rights issues involved, because I remember asking about it after - it was for the first show, the one he hosted in Nov. 2007). But man does that stick with you. So did the memory of those men above.

Anyhow: Memorial Day Weekend would not be such a wonderful time to enjoy BBQs and beachgoing and vacation-planning and sunshine-on-face-enjoying if people did not have the essential freedoms which make all that possible, and that’s what people like the men above are fighting for. So - $5.25 seems a reasonable trade for that.

So - Tumbl To Remind! That’s all. Have a great Memorial Day weekend - just remember what you’re Memorializing, and why.

p.s. The Bob Woodruff Foundation is also an original Charitini charity! Whoo!

p.p.s. Bob and Lee are both great - I bonded with Lee on a flight home from DC two years ago (insta-girlcrush) and Bob just seems like the nicest guy (see here).