Tue - January 20, 2004

It sounds like a made-for-television movie, but Mortenson's story is real. So is the remarkable personal war that he has waged on terrorism and poverty since the accident that nearly claimed his life.

While recovering in the village, Mortenson witnessed the overwhelming poverty that afflicts mountain communities in Central Asia, including Pakistan, Mongolia, and Kyrgyzstan, where one in three babies dies before its first birthday and literacy rates reach less than three percent.

He resolved to repay his debt by doing something to help.

For nearly a decade, he has done just that, fundraising and lobbying through his Central Asia Institute to build schools that currently educate more than 8,200 students, including 3,400 girls. The Institute has also created two dozen potable water projects and five vocational training programs. A little money goes a long way in countries where $17,000 builds a five-room school for 100 students, including supplies.

Although he could not have foreseen it when he began his venture, Mortenson's secular schools have also opened a new front to combat the indoctrination and despair that feed radical fundamentalism. They have bridged a cultural gap to thousands of young minds, substituting Hamlet for hatred and books for bombs.

I admire Mortenson's efforts. But more than his efforts, I admire his daring. It takes a soldier's courage to fight terrorists with weapons in the narrow mountain passes of Afghanistan and Pakistan. It takes a survivor's heart to do the same thing with words.