TWENTY-SEVEN-a
Brit – The Cost of life
How much is a rescued life worth? It cost the same to salvage one person as it does to save a dozen. We cannot quantify a life by dollars and cents. A liberated person freed from captivity will be a tax paying citizen for forty or more years. It is grueling to budget for our type of work. Our mission has grown more than the ten percent increase the inspector general recommends. Our rescue numbers have increased an average of thirty-seven percent a year over the last ten years. Who knows what the next twelve months will bring? Increased expenses represent saved lives.
Some years we have borrowed from the budgets of other units. The Mothers of the Cradle have donated millions of dollars to our cause. I am going to recommend a thirty percent increase based on former years. I will submit documented actual costs for those years and hope we will not need more.
My mind was spinning. My thoughts were weighed down and fuzzy. A cold darkness spread across me. I was frozen with inaction. I wanted to submit a one hundred percent increase.
Figures and balance sheets flooded my imagination. A dream haunted me, and I saw hundreds of scrawny desperate people begging for help. There were also gigantic dollar signs flashing throughout the vision. Shelly knocked and said, "I heard moaning and groaning spewing from your den."
"I was having my yearly nightmare in the middle of the day over our annual budget. Everyone laughed at me when I pleaded for more money."
"You are aware that your friends in the CIA and Mothers of the Cradle will help where needed. The Mothers make billions from defense contracts, because their bids are low, and their products are superior thanks to you. What they donate to your program ends up being a write-off on their taxes."
"My experience tells me that what you are saying is appropriate. I am clouded with too many concerns. What can you tell me about Anna and one of my junior officer's, Steve Odell?"
"Anna was an American missionary teaching English in a village that was raided by Gin Meows. Steve helped rescue her on one of your missions. They accept each other as they are. Family ties where they grew up do not exist. Both have been bestowed with Thai citizenship and they want to get married."
"Why?"
"He requested a thirty day leave to learn farming."
"Anna is one of the redeemed girls at the co-op who was molested by the Gin Meows. Her parents have branded her as a harlot because she was battered by Meows. They told her that she has no home in Tennessee." My body froze. Flames burned within me. Pain surrounded the temples on my head.
"How can a mother and father abandon their child who did no wrong?"
"I don't understand it either! Steve's Father deserted him, and his mother died recently. They are two lonely people who found love.
She was adopted by a generous, but older Thai farming couple. They claim her as their biological daughter. The Thai government accepted her as a Thai citizen.
He is trying to fit in with her family business. Grant him his leave and you will have one happy officer."
YOU ARE READING
Shadows of Shelly
RomanceHave you ever accused someone of something they did not do? Shelly did it, and it cost her years of agony. Will she be able to overcome her mistake? Will her life be dictated by that one perception where she was wrong? She is a beautiful young woman...
