There are only a few times in my life that I have been so overcome by emotion. On the night I crossed from Iraq back into Kuwait, as we convoyed out of the war zone, my friends and I circled around celebrating our survival of the most difficult 14 plus months of our lives. That night I was overcome by relief.

On Sunday afternoon as my cousin John Baldwin crossed the finish line of the Ford Ironman Triathlon in Lake Placid, NY, I was again overcome by emotion. As our red t-shirt clad clan converged on the man who just completed a grueling 140 mile course you could feel the overwhelming pride, joy, and inspiration that each of us shared for John.

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Post by John Baldwin, Race for War Kids competitor

It's been a couple of weeks since I first wrote about my training for the Race for War Kids. I'm competing in an Ironman triathlon to help raise money for War Kids Relief, an organization that helps give Iraq's war kids options besides recruitment by terrorists and extremist groups. War Kids Relief provides education, training, employment and other programs to Iraq's kids. Well, the race is getting close. Tomorrow, the family and I leave for Lake Placid.

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Thank you for showing so much support to my first post about the New York Times photo of Iraqi kids role playing a street execution. I'd like to follow up by introducing myself. My name is Dominick King, and I am the Executive Director of War Kids Relief, a non-profit organization that is working to save Iraq's war kids from a short life of violence.

I got involved with War Kids Relief the hard way. You see, during my second tour in Iraq, two separate tragedies affected me deeply, forcing me to move to action when I returned home from the war. These two separate events are what lead to my involvement with War Kids Relief.

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Post by John Baldwin, Race for War Kids competitor

When I heard my cousin Jon's stories about Iraq's war kids, I wanted to do something to help give the kids an opportunity to escape the cycle of violence. Like a lot of people, I didn't know at first what I could do. So when Jon told me that War Kids Relief is raising money to build Iraqi Youth Centers to give Iraq's war kids educational and employment opportunities, I offered to help them raise money by competing in the Janus Charity Challenge at the Ford Ironman USA triathlon in Lake Placid, NY. For me, it's not just a triathlon, it's the Race for War Kids.

Known as one of the most grueling endurance tests in sports, the Ironman triathlon consists of a 2.4 mile open water swim, followed by a 112 mile bike through the High Peaks region of the Adirondack Mountains and finishes with a gut punishing 26.2 mile run, finishing in the Olympic Oval in Lake Placid. It's incredibly tough on the mind and the body, but when I think of Iraq's war kids, I'm driven to succeed.

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While politicians and pundits debate the future of Iraq, Iraq's war kids are suffering horrific conditions. CBS News ran a story on Monday about the nightmare conditions at one Iraqi orphanage.

"They saw multiple bodies laying on the floor of the facility," Staff Sgt. Mitchell Gibson of the 82nd Airborne Division told CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan. "They thought they were all dead, so they threw a basketball (to) try and get some attention, and actually one of the kids lifted up their head, tilted it over and just looked and then went back down. And they said, 'oh, they're alive' and so they went into the building."

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