Paul Holton, a soldier in the Utah National Guard, began a campaign to gather toys, school supplies and other necessities for Iraqi children after a chance meeting with a young girl in Iraq, where he served as an Army interrogator for a year after the invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003.

"Once major combat operations had ended, we stopped having military prisoners, then interrogators become debriefers," Holton said. "When we started questioning civilians, it became an opportunity to interact with hundreds of Iraqis. I got to go into their homes, celebrate their birthdays with them and all that just opened doors for me."

It was during these interactions that Holton met the sobbing little girl, who had been separated from her mother.

When Holton wrote on his personal blog about the girl's reaction to receiving a stuffed monkey, he received hundreds of e-mails from well-wishers back home who wanted to contribute gifts for other Iraqi children.

"I just never really imagined that this would all blossom out from there," he said.

Today, Operation Give is based in a Glendale-area warehouse, facilitates eight independent projects to help Iraqi children and U.S. service members, and maintains a contract with FedEx, which pays all freight charges for the shipping of cargo containers from Utah to Iraq.

Rumsfeld is not the first high-profile politician to take note of Holton's operation. President Bush, also in town this week for the annual American Legion convention, mentioned the project in his 2004 prayer breakfast.

Holton said he's hoping Rumsfeld's visit will bring renewed attention to the operation, "so that maybe people will see what our vision is, see what our mission is and want to participate."

mlaplante@sltrib.com