Memorable Moments from my 2013 GSE India trip
Rotary made its focus to eradicate Polio worldwide in 1979. As a result, there are only 3 countries left on the Polio endemic list: Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria. You can truly feel the effect of this unless you had my experience. 
On the last day of our official duty in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India, we were in attendance at the District 3150 Conference. But before we went to the venue, my host, Dr. Vasanth, told me it was also National Immunization Day and District 3150 has identified 1,001 slums in the Hyderabad area for immunizations that day. Serving 926,000 children in 4,400 locations, our GSE team went to a school to help with the immunizations. 12,800 people had been deployed for the program that day to administer immunizations and I was one of those lucky people.
While I have seen the ravages of polio before in my childhood and in photos and stories, there is no comparison to reality. I had already been shown limb replacement projects, often in answer to the needs polio victims, but to see these little children brought in by their families to insure that they would not suffer from this horrible, debilitating disease, was a one of the most moving experiences I have had.
I was handed the little bottle of vaccine and after dropping two little drops into the mouths of these small Indians, I felt the power behind taking truly miraculous steps to make the world a better place. I felt like a healer! I know I did not invent the vaccine, nor did I mobilize the movement to eradicate this disease. But to touch these little lives with two drops of clear liquid and know that they are now safe from Polio made me feel invincible. And to top it off, one of the fathers bringing in his little girl insisted that I be the one to administer the drops to his daughter.
There is no greater honor and I am still moved to tears just remembering his smiling face that was filled with the comfort of his daughter's safety from polio.
