On Thursday, February 10th I, along with the rest of the Dune Sea Garrison had the awesome opportunity to suit up in our Imperial Tighty Whities (ITW) and go tour Phoenix Children’s Hospital to take some pictures with and bring some smiles to the kids in treatment there.

PCH is just a wonderful place.  If you have kids I hope you never have to take them to a children’s hospital.  But god forbid you do I hope you have the good fortune to have them treated at PCH.  I am fully convinced that so many children survive their ordeals because PCH focuses not just on the child’s physical treatment but on their psychological well being.  That’s not to say that there are overt attempts at therapy.  Rather the entire hospital is suffused with an understanding of how kids think and feel.  From the design of the hospital to the caliber of people that work there everything focuses not just on how to get the children better but how to make them happier while they are there.  It’s because of that focus that the 501st were lucky enough to get in and (in my case) give a little something back. 

The az501st is just full of amazingly good people.  I really was taken aback at the sacrifice that many of my fellow troopers (and support staff!!!) made not just to arrange for time off during the work week, but to bring stickers and hand drawn coloring books and toys etc. to make the kids smile and forget why they were where the were for a just a little bit.  These are truly noble people that deserve far more credit than they are ever going to get.  I’ll say it again.  You guys rock! 

Thanks also to Stuart R. who took these pictures for us and brought tons of stickers for us to hand out to the kids.  You’re a Trooper emeritus ok?

You can download some.zip files full of pics from out visit

here

here

here

here

and

here

Be warned that combined the files are 208megs and may take a while to download them all.  If anyone else in the garrison can host the files I’d be grateful. 

Finally, here are some pictures that Stuart managed to snap of me on the way back to undress.  I was alone in one of the halls waiting for the rest of our group to show up when this mom wheeled her daughter by and stopped to say hi.  It was just an awesome capstone to an awesome day.  I didn’t ask why they were in the hospital but the Mom volunteered that they were there a lot so I felt blessed to be able to cheer them up specifically.  I’m also glad she gave us permission to take the pics because its just a cool memory to have recorded.  Enough blah blah.

-TK5911