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Local 9-11 victim’s legacy to aid Afghan schoolBy Linda Carman
12:00AM / Wednesday, September 08, 2004
BENNINGTON, Vt. – Donald and Sally Goodrich, whose son Peter was killed three years ago on 9/11, have launched a drive to send much-needed supplies to a small school in Afghanistan — a project they say their son would have heartily approved.
Peter Goodrich was 33 when he was a passenger on United Airlines Flight 175, which terrorist hijackers flew into the World Trade Center.
The Goodrich’s decision to help the school was prompted by an e-mail from their son’s childhood friend Rush Filson, now a major in the Marine Corps serving in Afghanistan. Filson was impressed by the courage of the school principal and by the school’s lack of the most basic supplies.
The Goodriches said the school will be the first recipient of grants from their son’s memorial fund, and that two area churches will accept donations. In addition, as enthusiasm for the project has grown, so has its focus, to include future ties with local schools here.
Before the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the likelihood that two young men who grew up in Williamstown as fast friends would have their lives intersect with Afghanistan, a remote, then obscure, and still poverty-stricken country half a world away was slim to the point of improbability.
But the 9/11 terrorists trained in that country, at Al Qaeda camps whose presence was tolerated by its extremist Islamist Taliban government. And Filson’s presence in the country is part of the U.S. effort to stabilize the country and its revamped government after overthrowing the Taliban.
The Goodriches’ effort is in keeping with an initiative of the Families of 9/11 called One Day’s Pay, an organization that aims to encourage acts of help and compassion on Sept. 11 to commemorate the outpouring of humanitarian aid that followed on the day of the attacks. The families of those lost want to observe the day with volunteer service and do not want it reduced to the status of just another holiday.
The Goodriches said they want to help the school educate its pupils because the lack of adequate education has been pinpointed as one factor contributing to the pool of recruits for terrorist organizations. Too often, governments in that part of the world have left schooling to religious groups, and the madrassahs have been faulted for imparting rote religious indoctrination that is too often infected with hatred.
In his letter to his parents, Filson — who graduated from Bates College in Maine with Peter Goodrich — described the school, whose principal has had his life threatened numerous times in an attempt to close it. The school enrolls 300 students from kindergarten to age 17 and has a staff of eight. Half of the teachers are women, teaching math, science and languages, including English. Both the presence of women on staff and the conventional subject matter have put, according to Filson’s vivid terminology, a target on the principal’s back.
“The principal also told me that cloaked men have burst into his house at night routinely, and threatened the lives of his entire family. He responds every time by telling them that they can kill him, but until they do so, he’ll continue to teach,” Filson wrote.
Filson, on a mission to deliver supplies to the school, about 50 miles from the capital Kabul, described it as located in a mud compound without running water or sanitary facilities. A small courtyard, with two tents, has small chalkboards, the only evidence that the site is a school.
“There were no chairs, desks or anything else for that matter, save for a tattered red carpet on the floor,” Filson wrote.
The Goodriches aim to collect school supplies such as pencils, pens, paper, maps, chess sets, a blackboard, dry erase board and books in the local languages of Pashtun, Dari and Tajik.
“Peter would love it,” Sally Goodrich said.
Peter Goodrich, who attended Mount Greylock Regional High School before transferring to the Berkshire School in Sheffield, was intensely curious and fascinated by the world around him, particularly with cultures and religions.
He was working as a product developer for a Boston-based software company, MKS, and was bound for Los Angeles on a business trip on Sept. 11, 2001.
Sally Goodrich said she began her career in education because of Peter’s dyslexia. She is Title 1 coordinator in the North Adams School Department and is a member of the Bennington School Board.
Peter Goodrich’s wife, Rachel, lives in Sudbury and also supports the project.
Supplies will be shipped to Filson, who will deliver them to the school, and who has designated another officer to take up the project when he leaves Afghanistan in December.
Sally Goodrich emphasized that this sort of community service project is in keeping with the recommendations of the 9/11 Independent Commission, which warned that if the United States ignores Afghanistan, “the rule of the Taliban or warlords and narcotraffickers may re-emerge, and its countryside could once again offer refuge to Al Qaeda or its successor.”
The commission report also favored rebuilding scholarship, exchange and library programs that “reach out to young people and offer them knowledge and hope. Where such assistance is provided, it should be identified as coming from the citizens of the United States.”
Filson wrote, “I can think of no other time in my 11 years in the Marines where I’ve felt that my work has been more meaningful.
“Security, trust and education are the three pillars of essentiality when it comes to rebuilding this country, and I found myself smack-dab in the middle of the develpment of that trinity,” he added. “I like to say that 9/11 started in Afghanistan, and aside from holding those who planned and aided its execution criminally responsible, I can think of no other sense of justice for those who were killed than empowering these people with education and the means to determine their own future.
“Besides, it pleases me greatly that Pete would’ve approved of my efforts in helping Abdul [Nabi, the school principal].”
Donations, all tax deductible, may be made through the First Congregational Church, Bennington, Vt., St. John’s Episcopal Church, Williamstown, or to the Peter M. Goodrich Memorial Fund or the Goodriches, 1869 South Stream Road, Bennington, VT 05201
Filson described his experience as “poignant, considering the fact that I was brought here by what happened on 9/11.”
“I can’t help but be constantly reminded that the causes of Pete’s death and my being here are inextricably linked … we, as a global community, should never abandon again these people, for obvious reasons.”
Filson said is optimistic about progress in Afghanistan, given patience and “generous distribution of economic and infrastructural resources.” But an additional requirement, he said, is “a fundamental understanding of not only Afghanistan’s culture and history, but Central Asia as well” — lessons the British and Soviets failed to learn in time.
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