A young staff member at Greensboro College went with his wife to see the Steven Spielberg movie, "Saving Private Ryan." They reacted to the movie the way audiences are reacting to it worldwide – a powerful film that gives civilians a glimpse into some of the realities of war. Before the movie started, an elderly man in uniform, ramrod straight, walked into the theatre. At the end of the movie, the GC staff members had tears in their eyes. When they looked at the old soldier, they could see rivers of tears streaming down his face. Suddenly, the war that took place so many years ago was brought home to them; it was given a real face -- not the faces on the film -- it was the face of the old man, an old soldier, bathed in tears. His face will forever be the face of WWII to my young colleagues.

War is most meaningful in individual terms. Individuals, one at a time, make up the large numbers of dead and wounded. Individuals, one at a time, give face and texture to the vague statistics most often used to describe war and oppression. World War II shocked us with its horror and brutality which destroyed thousands and thousands of families. Yet, it is the tear-stained and bludgeoned faces of individuals we saw trying to be brave as they marched into the concentration camps in Nazi Germany that remain in our minds.

Thousands upon thousands have been reported uprooted, brutalized and murdered as a result of the Serb atrocities in Kosovo. Yet it is the craggy faces and weeping eyes of individuals who indelibly brand us with the terror those people endured.

Politicians and well-meaning reporters recount the details of parents and children faced with weapons school children should not have to face. However, it is the anguished faces of individual children in Littleton and Jonesboro which makes news reports reality for us.

Periodically, the media reminds us of the overcrowded conditions in our nation's prison system. We hear the horror stories of people wrongly imprisoned. We shutter at the stories of brutal and inhumane conditions in our prisons and those around the world. Most of us shrug this off with the thought, "that is not my world."

Then, along comes Kwame Cannon who served 13 years in jail for crimes he admits he committed. From time to time he was featured on news shows as were those working for his liberation. When Kwame Cannon's face appeared then the vast numbers of people who cause the "overcrowding" takes on a face and a life and a story, and our hearts pour out in sympathy and support.

Individuals bleed and cry and die. Individuals must find the solutions to these problems. So much of what we know about Kosovo has to do with the bombing and the survival marches and all too often the wrong target is hit and the survival march comes up short of its objective. And people die.

But sometimes good things happen. Sometimes the end of the story is a happy one. Sometimes these desperate refugees from Kosovo arrive in the United States, are flown to a place that is warm and safe and food is plentiful and they spontaneously join in chants of USA! USA! USA! That happened just last week at McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey.

The Kwame Cannon story promises an equally thrilling conclusion. Thanks to the steady perseverance and determined efforts of individual family members and individual friends, Mr. Cannon came home to a Greensboro which welcomed him with support from many individuals, and an opportunity to earn a journalism degree from North Carolina A & T State University. How fortunate that many individuals responded to the needs of this one individual in Greensboro. How fortunate that individuals are responding to the 400 individuals from Kosovo in New Jersey, and the countless victims of the holocaust and Nazi Germany.

A horrible storm occurred on the coast washing thousands and thousands of starfish onto the sand. When the tides receded those starfish were stranded in the sand, and there left to die. Way down the beach came a man individually throwing the starfish back out to sea. A stranger stopped him and reminded him of the futility of his task because there were so very many stranded starfish. "With so many, what difference does it make?" The stranger bent over, picked up another and threw it out as far as he could, and said, "It made a difference to that one."