2010 Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient: Dr. Tom Little February 17, 2011

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Dr. Tom Little was an ophthalmologist who was brutally murdered on August 6, 2010 by the Taliban in the Kuran Wa Munjan district of Badakhshan, Afghanistan along with nine other members of a team returning from a humanitarian mission to provide vision care in the remote Parun valley of Nuristan. Since the 1970s, Dr. Little and his wife, Elizabeth Little, had lived on and off in Afghanistan providing vision care to the people of that country through the NOOR program (Noor means "light" in Persian) that Dr. Little ran for the International Assistance Mission (IAM). The Taliban asserted that the team was spying and proselytizing, allegations that IAM vehemently denied. Here, Elizabeth Little, takes time out to reflect about her husband's life and work and the significance of receiving this honor.