Guardsman plays Santa for Iraqi kids

Their mission was to liberate the Iraqi people from the oppression of an evil regime. With that done, one soldier has taken it upon himself to help heal the victims – through the power of toys.

National Guardsman "Chief Wiggles" stumbled into his new mission by accident when he encountered a little girl crying outside the barbed wire fence outside one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces where he works. The girl's mother, who had only one leg, had hobbled inside to seek assistance.

"She was obviously very poor, in her tattered old dress, totally worn out plastic flip-flops, her hair matted against her head indicating she hadn't had a bath in a long time and her skin blistered from the dirt and weather," Wiggles wrote in his Web-based journal.

"Once I saw her I quickly told the MPs to move the barbed wire back to let her in to join her mother. Her crying stopped as she darted in to grab ahold of her mother's long black dishdasha, torn and frayed from years of use. As she stood by her mother's side, grasping her dress, I moved over slowly to brush her stringy hair away from her eyes and to pat her gently on the head, as I told the guard to make sure they don't leave before I could return," his story continued.

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Wiggles said he went back to his office and rummaged through his mail box full of toys sent by teammates back home. He collected a comb, a brush, a pair of new flip-flops, a whistle, a stuffed monkey and a new toothbrush and tooth paste and, through an interpreter, presented each item to the girl.

"I explained what each item was, to insure she knew what I was giving her, especially as I gave her the toothbrush, asking her to be sure to brush everyday," Wiggles wrote. "Her eyes lit up with such joy as I put the monkey arms over her head. She was so excited to receive everything, being somewhat shy though, not having dealt with an American before. She was so precious as her big brown eyes looked up at me, causing me to almost break down into tears."

Wiggles' Internet posting concluded with thanks to his teammates back home for enabling him to "influence and affect the attitudes of Iraqis one person at a time."

"I have only one request of them and others," he wrote. "Please send me more toys!"

Wiggles heartfelt account generated 1,000 e-mails over the next 24 hours from readers wanting to know where to send toys, Scott Evensen a friend of Wiggles, told their hometown newspaper in Utah, the Deseret Morning News.

This outpouring of support for Chief Wiggles' campaign last month spawned Operation Give, through which more than 500 boxes of toys have been shipped to Baghdad and more tens of thousands of dollars have been contributed to finance the drive, according to the Morning News.

As Evensen described, volunteers lined up warehouse space in Baltimore and made arrangements to ship donated items to Kuwait at a cost of about $3,500 per shipping container.

Evensen told the paper they got word from orphanages in Iraq that the children were in particular need of school materials and underwear.

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Chief Wiggles presents a toy to an Iraqi child.

"My sphere of influence is small in comparison to the task at hand, but who knows what the ripple affect will be of my small effort to calm the tears of one sweet little girl," Wiggles had wondered in his Internet journal last month.

Who knows, indeed.