-- Eyes Wide Open, now 1007 pairs of boots. Eyes Wide Open is a traveling exhibit, learn more at http://eyes.afsc.org
Monday, September 13, 2004
-- Eyes Wide Open, 1007 pairs of boots now. This is a traveling exhibit from Eyes Wide Open. More info see at http://eyes.afsc.org
Thursday, September 9, 2004
Putting a Face on the Numbers of Casualties, Iraq
posted an excerpt, below, from one of the many articles which capture the stories of some of the men and women who have died. You can see the pictures, names, and stories of all of the men and women who died in Iraq at: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/
Iraq war claims 1,000th U.S.casualty
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/189908_iraq08.html
[Excerpts:]Every name in the roster deserves a story:
Caleb Powers, 21, a Marine Corps lance corporal from Mansfield who donated his time to the children's society that had cared for him as a boy.
Army Spc. Jeremiah Schmunk, 20, a fun-loving man who wore a wig and dress to school to invite a girl to a Sadie Hawkins dance in his hometown of Warden.
Army Spc. Jake Herring, a 20-year-old 180-pounder from Kirkland who was the undersized but tenacious center and co-captain of his high school football team.
John "Sully" Sullivan, a 28-year-old heavy metal "shredder" who traded guitar for weapons as a member of the Army's 101st Airborne Division.
The youngest soldiers from Washington to die in Iraq were only 19.
They were:
Marine Pfc. Cody Calavan of Lake Stevens;
Army Pfc. Duane Longstreth from Tacoma;
and Army Spc. Nathan Nakis from Sedro-Woolley.
A thousand dead is a terrible toll. But even the number one is a harsh statistic for families who pick up the telephone and get the news no one wants to hear. "It's just not the same here anymore," said David Scott, a father still grieving a year after his son's death. "There's an empty spot -- and it's felt all through our house."
Read more
Iraq war claims 1,000th U.S.casualty
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/189908_iraq08.html
[Excerpts:]Every name in the roster deserves a story:
Caleb Powers, 21, a Marine Corps lance corporal from Mansfield who donated his time to the children's society that had cared for him as a boy.
Army Spc. Jeremiah Schmunk, 20, a fun-loving man who wore a wig and dress to school to invite a girl to a Sadie Hawkins dance in his hometown of Warden.
Army Spc. Jake Herring, a 20-year-old 180-pounder from Kirkland who was the undersized but tenacious center and co-captain of his high school football team.
John "Sully" Sullivan, a 28-year-old heavy metal "shredder" who traded guitar for weapons as a member of the Army's 101st Airborne Division.
The youngest soldiers from Washington to die in Iraq were only 19.
They were:
Marine Pfc. Cody Calavan of Lake Stevens;
Army Pfc. Duane Longstreth from Tacoma;
and Army Spc. Nathan Nakis from Sedro-Woolley.
A thousand dead is a terrible toll. But even the number one is a harsh statistic for families who pick up the telephone and get the news no one wants to hear. "It's just not the same here anymore," said David Scott, a father still grieving a year after his son's death. "There's an empty spot -- and it's felt all through our house."
Wednesday, September 8, 2004
The harvest in August. Now it's September and the chill is in the morning air. Not sure how much more of my garden is going to grow to maturation...but, hey, the pumpkins are growing, and the cucumbers are producing, and some late squash are growing.
Ahhh, more produce from the garden. Look at that, I've got corn, eh! Not so easy to get a full season to grow corn where I live.
See my cool birthday present from Cinda..it's so Pink! My new pink mix-master to go with my pink formica table, pink cake-taker and pink breadbox...so 1950's eh?
Tuesday, September 7, 2004
So today, September 7, 2004 marks another milestone in the war in Iraq. We have as of today, now lost more than 1,000 American soldiers. Young people, who won't be returning home to this free democracy we call the United States of America.
I'm not going to make an editorial here, more post to mark the treachery of an unelected President who has set us on an unwarranted war with unjust cause in the name of his unjust god...it's certainly not a God I recognize.
Can we Bring Them Home Now? Or is the new acceptable loss number moved up to 2,000. When will our own public outcry be cohesive enough, loud enough to be heard and these unreasonable and unrealistic losses of our young be called to an end?
Do you want to ask a soldier to be the last to die for a lie?
Read more
I'm not going to make an editorial here, more post to mark the treachery of an unelected President who has set us on an unwarranted war with unjust cause in the name of his unjust god...it's certainly not a God I recognize.
Can we Bring Them Home Now? Or is the new acceptable loss number moved up to 2,000. When will our own public outcry be cohesive enough, loud enough to be heard and these unreasonable and unrealistic losses of our young be called to an end?
Do you want to ask a soldier to be the last to die for a lie?
Going now into the elections in November, please think on this when you are voting.....How Do you ask a soldier to be the last person to die for a lie?
Bush Betrays Veterans
http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/print.php?sid=803&POSTNUKESID=04bbb65623e8a0d60ffa31a1b70abaff
Bush Betrays Veterans
Date: Jul 13, 2004 - 08:31 PM
As the November election nears, veterans need to realize that President Bush has not been their friend, that Republicans are anti-veteran.
By Gerald S. Rellick
In the spring of 2003, shortly after the start of the war in Iraq, the state of affairs on veterans funding in the Republican controlled House was by all accounts surprisingly hostile to veterans. The Bush administration sent to the House its proposal for cutting $844 million from veterans’ health care from the 2004 budget. Over a 10-year period the cuts would total approximately $10 billion. When the proposal reached the House Budget Committee, all 18 Democrats opposed the cuts, and they proposed an amendment to restore the $844 million and add another billion for VA discretionary health care. Led by their chairman, Jim Nussle of Iowa, Republicans on the committee, in an almost perfect party-line vote, 22-19, rejected the amendment and proceeded with the Bush proposal.
The uproar that followed this partisan attempt to cut veterans’ benefits in a time of war caught Republicans off guard and they quickly backed off. But the die was cast. Everyone knew where Bush and the Republicans stood on the matter of honoring the country’s veterans.
The political miscalculation by the White House and the Republicans reveals a deep sore within the world of America’s veterans. Since the days of the Civil War, America’s fighting men have always been on the losing end of budget battles in one administration after another, mocking, as it were, Abraham Lincoln’s admonition “to care for him who shall have borne the battle.” Out of their sense of duty and loyalty, veterans have no doubt been reluctant to criticize their government, not fully appreciating perhaps that it is the government officials in power who are to be held responsible, not the country or the American people. In addition, veterans have been notoriously difficult to organize as a constituent group. This lack of strong representation has made them an easy target when money is tight.
George Bush’s hard-nosed stand against expanding veterans’ benefits is difficult to understand. One might have thought Bush would do no more than hold the line on spending. After all, this is a president who had just launched the biggest military campaign since the Vietnam War and who styles himself as a “war president.” Barbara Ehrenreich, in an article in the April Progressive, wonders why George Bush, for purely practical reasons, isn’t rushing to “enrich the frontline troops rather than nickel-and-diming them every inch of the way.” Ehrenreich says that since at least the seventeenth century, governments have realized the need to provide for those who do the fighting in war. As she puts it, “If you want the working class to die for you, then you have to give them something in return.” But this all seems lost on George Bush. As a Los Angeles Times editorial noted recently, Bush’s motivations seem at times not only bizarre but random, absent of any coherence.
And so, Bush found himself in a difficult situation, although one of his own making. His three rounds of tax cuts, with the overwhelming benefit going to the wealthy, cost the U.S. Treasury $2 trillion (that’s spelled with a ‘t’). When you add the cost of the war in Iraq (currently at $200 billion and counting) and a $500 billion budget deficit, Bush found himself under great pressure to demonstrate to “real Republicans”--those few who still believe in fiscal responsibility--that he was willing to cut costs. Taking a position against increasing veterans’ benefits was clearly a calculated political gamble by Bush and the GOP. In short, they were hoping veterans simply wouldn’t notice. It’s an old game but never before played so brazenly and recklessly as by this president.
Fast-forward one year to the present and we find an array of charges and countercharges surrounding the 2005 veterans’ budgets. Democrats and various veterans’ organizations are once again critical of Bush and the GOP for shortchanging veterans. Some have charged that the veterans’ budget is actually being cut. In fact, as the organization FactCheck.org reports, the veterans’ budget under Bush has risen steadily each year. If the current numbers hold (the 2005 budget is far from final), the total increase under Bush will be about 38%. In the eight years of the Clinton administration, the veterans’ budget increased by 32%.
It turns out that critics have been careless in their choice of words. The real issue is that while the dollar amount going to veterans’ programs has increased, the increases have fallen seriously short of demand. By the VA’s own account, demand for VA services has been increasing at a rate of about 15% per year while the average annual funding has increased by only 9.5%. Using these numbers, one calculates that the VA budget is about $10 billion below the level determined by demand. VA director Anthony Principi admitted in February in a House committee hearing that he had asked the Bush budget team for approval to seek an additional $1.2 billion but that his request was denied. FactCheck.org called this blunt admission by Principi “a rare break with administration protocol.”
Another troubling aspect of the Bush administration’s handling of veterans is what is known as demand management: If funding is below demand, then do what is necessary to reduce demand. This is exactly what the VA has done with the program known as Veterans Outreach. This program, created by Congress in 1970, was intended to ensure that all veterans receive “timely and appropriate assistance to aid and encourage them in applying for and obtaining” federal benefits and services. To fulfill this purpose, Congress charged the VA “with the affirmative duty of seeking out eligible veterans and eligible dependents and providing them” with the federal benefits and services to which they are entitled.
In July 2002, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs Deputy Secretary for Operation and Management, Laura Miller, issued a memorandum to all VA Network Directors regarding the agency’s Outreach policy toward veterans. In her statement, Miller instructed all Network Directors to “ensure that no marketing activities to enroll new veterans occur within your networks.” It goes on to say that “[e]ven though some sites might have local capacity … all facilities are expected to abide by this policy.” In effect, VA employees were specifically directed to refrain from actively recruiting more people into the VA health care system and to provide only general information.
Representative Ted Strickland, Democrat from Ohio, objected strongly to the VA position on Outreach. According to Strickland’s office, Principi defended this policy, stating in a letter to Strickland in January 2003: “I made the decision to temporarily restrict marketing in order to conserve scarce fiscal resources for the veterans already enrolled in the VA system.”
Shortly after Principi’s letter, Congressman Strickland and Thomas Corey, the president of Vietnam Veterans of America, filed suit in federal court “to compel the VA to comply with its legal obligation to inform potential patients and beneficiaries of available VA programs and services.” The lawsuit states that, “Congress has explicitly directed the VA to perform outreach services to ensure that veterans and their families are aware of services and benefits to which they are entitled.”
The Knight Ridder newspaper group recently reported the results of its analysis of the number of veterans who are potentially missing out on disability payments and who would benefit if Outreach were to be aggressively implemented. Using the VA’s own survey data, Knight Ridder estimates the number of such veterans at 572,000. If only a third of these veterans turned out to be eligible, the cost would be about $1.5 billion. But as we’ve seen, while this amount is pocket change compared to the Bush tax cuts and the war in Iraq, or the recent Medicare bill at $500 billion dollars, for veterans, sadly, this is big money.
The annual uncertainty in veterans’ funding has led over the years for calls to make veterans’ health care benefits mandatory. This would place them in the category of entitlements, the same as social security and Medicare. Imagine the nightmare if social security benefits were subject each year to congressional and executive branch priorities and whims. The moral argument is the same: As a country, we have an obligation to take care of those who served and sacrificed for our welfare.
As reported by Boston Globe columnist Tom Oliphant, in late June Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle proposed just this--making veterans’ health care coverage mandatory. Daschle proposed a two-year trial of the entitlement idea. The cost of fully funding the health care need was estimated to be an additional $2.6 billion next year and then to rise with the number of eligible veterans and inflation after that. But, says Oliphant, “The vote never had a chance.… The Senate needed to waive budget rules to consider the proposal as part of an annual military spending measure. That requires 60 votes; it got 49.”
But, as Oliphant notes, an important point was made. Congressional Democrats and John Kerry support mandatory funding of veterans’ health care. George Bush, Dennis Hastert, and Bill Frist do not. If the Senate and House were not in Republican control, veterans with health care needs could rest easy.
As the November elections near, many veterans are being forced to reexamine their longstanding support for the Republican Party. What we have in Washington today is not the Republican party of Eisenhower or Goldwater or even Richard Nixon. Bush and his breed are something new, a mutant breed that feeds on ideology, greed, and pure political power. And it feeds on the weak. Veterans who support Bush are voting against their own interests and those of their comrades, particularly those who are disabled and others in need of medical care. Men and women who have worn the uniform of the U.S. military know there is no greater disgrace than to let their buddies down. It’s time that veterans and their families recognize that the greatest threat to America’s security comes not from without but from within.
Earlier Article by the Author:
Bush Attacks’ Veterans Benefits
Related Intervention Articles:
Republican Attack On U.S. Veterans
Republicans Seek To Slash VA Budget!
Billions For Invading Iraq And Homelessness For Veterans
Veterans Administration Out Of Control?
Bush’s War Against U.S. Military Veterans
Gerald S. Rellick, Ph.D., worked in the defense sector of the aerospace industry. He now teaches in the California Community College system. You can email Gerald at Rellick@interventionmag.com
Read more
Bush Betrays Veterans
Date: Jul 13, 2004 - 08:31 PM
As the November election nears, veterans need to realize that President Bush has not been their friend, that Republicans are anti-veteran.
By Gerald S. Rellick
In the spring of 2003, shortly after the start of the war in Iraq, the state of affairs on veterans funding in the Republican controlled House was by all accounts surprisingly hostile to veterans. The Bush administration sent to the House its proposal for cutting $844 million from veterans’ health care from the 2004 budget. Over a 10-year period the cuts would total approximately $10 billion. When the proposal reached the House Budget Committee, all 18 Democrats opposed the cuts, and they proposed an amendment to restore the $844 million and add another billion for VA discretionary health care. Led by their chairman, Jim Nussle of Iowa, Republicans on the committee, in an almost perfect party-line vote, 22-19, rejected the amendment and proceeded with the Bush proposal.
The uproar that followed this partisan attempt to cut veterans’ benefits in a time of war caught Republicans off guard and they quickly backed off. But the die was cast. Everyone knew where Bush and the Republicans stood on the matter of honoring the country’s veterans.
The political miscalculation by the White House and the Republicans reveals a deep sore within the world of America’s veterans. Since the days of the Civil War, America’s fighting men have always been on the losing end of budget battles in one administration after another, mocking, as it were, Abraham Lincoln’s admonition “to care for him who shall have borne the battle.” Out of their sense of duty and loyalty, veterans have no doubt been reluctant to criticize their government, not fully appreciating perhaps that it is the government officials in power who are to be held responsible, not the country or the American people. In addition, veterans have been notoriously difficult to organize as a constituent group. This lack of strong representation has made them an easy target when money is tight.
George Bush’s hard-nosed stand against expanding veterans’ benefits is difficult to understand. One might have thought Bush would do no more than hold the line on spending. After all, this is a president who had just launched the biggest military campaign since the Vietnam War and who styles himself as a “war president.” Barbara Ehrenreich, in an article in the April Progressive, wonders why George Bush, for purely practical reasons, isn’t rushing to “enrich the frontline troops rather than nickel-and-diming them every inch of the way.” Ehrenreich says that since at least the seventeenth century, governments have realized the need to provide for those who do the fighting in war. As she puts it, “If you want the working class to die for you, then you have to give them something in return.” But this all seems lost on George Bush. As a Los Angeles Times editorial noted recently, Bush’s motivations seem at times not only bizarre but random, absent of any coherence.
And so, Bush found himself in a difficult situation, although one of his own making. His three rounds of tax cuts, with the overwhelming benefit going to the wealthy, cost the U.S. Treasury $2 trillion (that’s spelled with a ‘t’). When you add the cost of the war in Iraq (currently at $200 billion and counting) and a $500 billion budget deficit, Bush found himself under great pressure to demonstrate to “real Republicans”--those few who still believe in fiscal responsibility--that he was willing to cut costs. Taking a position against increasing veterans’ benefits was clearly a calculated political gamble by Bush and the GOP. In short, they were hoping veterans simply wouldn’t notice. It’s an old game but never before played so brazenly and recklessly as by this president.
Fast-forward one year to the present and we find an array of charges and countercharges surrounding the 2005 veterans’ budgets. Democrats and various veterans’ organizations are once again critical of Bush and the GOP for shortchanging veterans. Some have charged that the veterans’ budget is actually being cut. In fact, as the organization FactCheck.org reports, the veterans’ budget under Bush has risen steadily each year. If the current numbers hold (the 2005 budget is far from final), the total increase under Bush will be about 38%. In the eight years of the Clinton administration, the veterans’ budget increased by 32%.
It turns out that critics have been careless in their choice of words. The real issue is that while the dollar amount going to veterans’ programs has increased, the increases have fallen seriously short of demand. By the VA’s own account, demand for VA services has been increasing at a rate of about 15% per year while the average annual funding has increased by only 9.5%. Using these numbers, one calculates that the VA budget is about $10 billion below the level determined by demand. VA director Anthony Principi admitted in February in a House committee hearing that he had asked the Bush budget team for approval to seek an additional $1.2 billion but that his request was denied. FactCheck.org called this blunt admission by Principi “a rare break with administration protocol.”
Another troubling aspect of the Bush administration’s handling of veterans is what is known as demand management: If funding is below demand, then do what is necessary to reduce demand. This is exactly what the VA has done with the program known as Veterans Outreach. This program, created by Congress in 1970, was intended to ensure that all veterans receive “timely and appropriate assistance to aid and encourage them in applying for and obtaining” federal benefits and services. To fulfill this purpose, Congress charged the VA “with the affirmative duty of seeking out eligible veterans and eligible dependents and providing them” with the federal benefits and services to which they are entitled.
In July 2002, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs Deputy Secretary for Operation and Management, Laura Miller, issued a memorandum to all VA Network Directors regarding the agency’s Outreach policy toward veterans. In her statement, Miller instructed all Network Directors to “ensure that no marketing activities to enroll new veterans occur within your networks.” It goes on to say that “[e]ven though some sites might have local capacity … all facilities are expected to abide by this policy.” In effect, VA employees were specifically directed to refrain from actively recruiting more people into the VA health care system and to provide only general information.
Representative Ted Strickland, Democrat from Ohio, objected strongly to the VA position on Outreach. According to Strickland’s office, Principi defended this policy, stating in a letter to Strickland in January 2003: “I made the decision to temporarily restrict marketing in order to conserve scarce fiscal resources for the veterans already enrolled in the VA system.”
Shortly after Principi’s letter, Congressman Strickland and Thomas Corey, the president of Vietnam Veterans of America, filed suit in federal court “to compel the VA to comply with its legal obligation to inform potential patients and beneficiaries of available VA programs and services.” The lawsuit states that, “Congress has explicitly directed the VA to perform outreach services to ensure that veterans and their families are aware of services and benefits to which they are entitled.”
The Knight Ridder newspaper group recently reported the results of its analysis of the number of veterans who are potentially missing out on disability payments and who would benefit if Outreach were to be aggressively implemented. Using the VA’s own survey data, Knight Ridder estimates the number of such veterans at 572,000. If only a third of these veterans turned out to be eligible, the cost would be about $1.5 billion. But as we’ve seen, while this amount is pocket change compared to the Bush tax cuts and the war in Iraq, or the recent Medicare bill at $500 billion dollars, for veterans, sadly, this is big money.
The annual uncertainty in veterans’ funding has led over the years for calls to make veterans’ health care benefits mandatory. This would place them in the category of entitlements, the same as social security and Medicare. Imagine the nightmare if social security benefits were subject each year to congressional and executive branch priorities and whims. The moral argument is the same: As a country, we have an obligation to take care of those who served and sacrificed for our welfare.
As reported by Boston Globe columnist Tom Oliphant, in late June Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle proposed just this--making veterans’ health care coverage mandatory. Daschle proposed a two-year trial of the entitlement idea. The cost of fully funding the health care need was estimated to be an additional $2.6 billion next year and then to rise with the number of eligible veterans and inflation after that. But, says Oliphant, “The vote never had a chance.… The Senate needed to waive budget rules to consider the proposal as part of an annual military spending measure. That requires 60 votes; it got 49.”
But, as Oliphant notes, an important point was made. Congressional Democrats and John Kerry support mandatory funding of veterans’ health care. George Bush, Dennis Hastert, and Bill Frist do not. If the Senate and House were not in Republican control, veterans with health care needs could rest easy.
As the November elections near, many veterans are being forced to reexamine their longstanding support for the Republican Party. What we have in Washington today is not the Republican party of Eisenhower or Goldwater or even Richard Nixon. Bush and his breed are something new, a mutant breed that feeds on ideology, greed, and pure political power. And it feeds on the weak. Veterans who support Bush are voting against their own interests and those of their comrades, particularly those who are disabled and others in need of medical care. Men and women who have worn the uniform of the U.S. military know there is no greater disgrace than to let their buddies down. It’s time that veterans and their families recognize that the greatest threat to America’s security comes not from without but from within.
Earlier Article by the Author:
Bush Attacks’ Veterans Benefits
Related Intervention Articles:
Republican Attack On U.S. Veterans
Republicans Seek To Slash VA Budget!
Billions For Invading Iraq And Homelessness For Veterans
Veterans Administration Out Of Control?
Bush’s War Against U.S. Military Veterans
Gerald S. Rellick, Ph.D., worked in the defense sector of the aerospace industry. He now teaches in the California Community College system. You can email Gerald at Rellick@interventionmag.com
U.S. & Coalition/Casualties
Forces: U.S. & Coalition/Casualties
There have been:
in the war in Iraq as of September 6, 2004 (Graphical breakdown of casualties).
The list (see link) is the names of the soldiers, Marines, airmen, sailors and Coast Guardsmen whose families have been notified of their deaths by each country’s government.
At least 6,916 U.S. troops have been wounded in action, according to the Pentagon.
The Pentagon does not report the number of non-hostile wounded. This list is updated regularly.
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/
Read more
There have been:
- 1,120 coalition deaths;
- 993 Americans,
- 65 Britons,
- six Bulgarians,
- one Dane,
- two Dutch,
- one Estonian,
- one Hungarian,
- 19 Italians,
- one Latvian,
- 10 Poles,
- one Salvadoran,
- three Slovaks,
- 11 Spaniards,
- two Thai
- eight Ukrainians,
in the war in Iraq as of September 6, 2004 (Graphical breakdown of casualties).
The list (see link) is the names of the soldiers, Marines, airmen, sailors and Coast Guardsmen whose families have been notified of their deaths by each country’s government.
At least 6,916 U.S. troops have been wounded in action, according to the Pentagon.
The Pentagon does not report the number of non-hostile wounded. This list is updated regularly.
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2003/iraq/forces/casualties/
Time Slow to Heal Pain Left by Soldier's Death
Released SEPTEMBER 1, 2004
washingtonpost.com
For Va. Family, Perpetual Days Of Anguish Time Slow to Heal Pain Left by Soldier's Death
By Sue Anne Pressley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 7, 2004
That Friday morning in November, when Donna Gilmore heard the news reports that a U.S. Army helicopter had been shot down in Iraq, her heart ached to think what the families of the dead soldiers would be going through. As she waited inside her Stafford, Va., church, ready to leave for an out-of-town conference, she and her minister decided to pray.
"We prayed for the families," Gilmore said, "not knowing it was my own family I was praying for."
That was the beginning, Day One.
In a few hours, Gilmore would learn that her husband of 21 years and the father of her two college-age children had been aboard the Black Hawk UH-60 helicopter that crashed Nov. 7 in Tikrit, killing all six aboard. Army Command Sgt. Maj. Cornell W. Gilmore, 45, had been in Iraq just five days, for what amounted to a routine inspection tour. He was supposed to be gone a week.
More than 16 months after President Bush declared major combat in Iraq over, Gilmore and others are still dying there. Before that declaration, about 140 U.S. troops had died; since, more than 800 have fallen. Publicly, these deaths have prompted a bitter national divide. Privately, they have triggered a much more lasting pain.
The funerals have filled the news -- often young soldiers in the military a short time. Cornell Gilmore was different. He and his family had lived the military life for more than 20 years, and they knew, as his wife said, that "anyone in uniform is in jeopardy." He had fought on the front lines in the Persian Gulf War in 1991. But his family members had believed that in this conflict he was well-removed from danger, and now they are trying to reconcile their deep loyalty to the military with their sorrow over his death.
For this family and others, the experience is a struggle through time. Day One is one of the worst days, when the anguish is fresh and scalding. But there are many more bad days to come, a round of birthdays and anniversaries and holidays and ordinary times that will never be the same again, that stretch far beyond the funeral services and the surge of public attention.
Donna Gilmore, 43, and her children, Dawnita, 20, and Cornell II, or C.J., 18, have been navigating this altered life for almost 10 months. A close family who had lived on bases from Kansas to Germany to Hawaii, they are learning, as the days and months pass, to go on without their father and husband, their "team leader."
"I have had moments when I've been here by myself that have just been horrible, and you just cry out to God," Donna Gilmore said.
But "C.J. said something to me early on. He said, 'Mom, we're never going to get over this -- we just have to get on with life.' "
A Man of Big Smiles
Cornell "Gil" Gilmore, a tall, broad-shouldered man, would enter a room with a big smile and one of his signature lines, delivered with exclamation points. "Greetings, everyone! How are you?"
He had other phrases he liked to use, so closely identified with him that they were included on the back cover of his funeral program: "Come on, team!" "I got you covered." And his exit line, "Go forth -- and have a nice day."
He was known for his optimism, his love of baseball and gospel music, and his cookie habit. He believed in "life lessons" and being punctual. He went out every Friday night on a scheduled date with his wife, getting dressed up and enduring his children's taunts. He was tight with a dollar and loved his collection of cheap clunker cars, especially "The Blue Bomb," an old Chevrolet he took C.J. out in for father-son talks.
The youngest of 12 children who grew up in Baltimore, he had become the highest-ranking enlisted man and the highest-ranking African American in the Army's Judge Advocate General's Corps. But he had vowed that when he retired in a few years, he was going to be a Wal-Mart greeter.
"He meant it," said Dawnita, a junior at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte and a self-described "daddy's girl," who resembles her father. "My dad had worked very hard, and he was going to be a greeter -- he said he did that already."
He had joined the Army in 1981, after graduating from the University of Maryland at Baltimore. When he announced his plans to Donna, then his fiancee, she had no idea what military life would be like, but she was ready to give it a try. Dawnita was born on a memorably hot Fourth of July in Fort Polk, La.; C.J., 15 months later, when the family was posted to Germany.
An involved father, Gilmore coached youth teams in every sport. Church was important. As a skilled pianist, drummer, bass player and singer, he always took the lead in worship services, and for a time, he and the children formed a gospel group called G-3, which stood for both Gilmore 3 and God's 3. Donna and Cornell also had what they called "a marriage ministry," teaching a course on improving relationships to other couples.
Military life suited them. Gilmore advanced steadily, lauded for his leadership skills, sunny personality and kindness toward junior soldiers. The family made close friends wherever they lived, and although they joked that no one joined the military to get rich, it was for them a satisfying experience.
In 2002, Gilmore was transferred to the Pentagon, on what he planned as his final assignment. For the first time, the family was back in their home area in a position to buy a house. They chose a two-story model on a corner lot in Stafford. The kids were off at college. Evenings when they were free, Donna and Cornell would sit in their matching recliners, up in the loft of their new home, and talk.
The Pentagon job, unlike his previous posts, required a lot of traveling. When he telephoned his wife from London in early November, en route to Iraq, he reported with a laugh that his luggage had been lost.
Day One
Donna Gilmore was aboard the church bus, headed to a women's conference in Williamsburg later that awful Friday morning in November, when her cell phone rang. A friend in Fort Stewart, Ga., another military wife, had heard the ranks of the six helicopter-crash victims in Iraq. One was a regimental sergeant major in the JAG Corps. That could be only one person.
Gilmore telephoned the Pentagon. "I kind of forced the hand," she said. "I said, 'Look, I can't wait till I get home to have somebody tell me this news. I need to know now.' "
Finally, an officer told her, reluctantly, that they believed her husband had been involved in an incident.
The bus was already stopped in a parking lot.
"There was a clear sky, and I remember a field, and I didn't want anybody to touch me. I just wanted to go out and talk to God," Gilmore said. "And I remember I was crying and talking to him at the same time, 'Okay, God, you got me. You're going to have to have me because I don't know what else to do.'
"And I remember the second thing that came to my mind -- 'I've got to get to my children before they hear about this on the news.' "
Dawnita, at school in Charlotte, had awakened that morning, thinking about helicopters and wondering why such strange things would pop into her head. When her mother called, "I broke down," she said. "I just fell on the floor and I was crying like crazy."
Her boyfriend and other friends arrived and helped her pack her things. Outside the dorm, they joined hands in a circle and prayed. "The next thing I know, two carloads of us were heading out," she said.
C.J., who was a freshman at St. Augustine's College in Raleigh, N.C., was worried about writing a paper in the hour left before speech class when his mother reached him about noon.
"She told me there had been a helicopter crash," he said. "I thought, 'Okay, my dad's coming back with one arm.' Death was far away from my mind. I said, 'What happened?' and she said, 'He died,' and I just lost it. I was angry. My fists were balled up, and I was ready to hit something, but of course, I didn't."
The next days passed in a blur of activity. There was the funeral to prepare for, a home-going service, as the family called it. The house was full of people. The family kept up a stoic front.
"I never ever that whole week cried in front of anybody. I waited until I'd go to bed," Dawnita said. "I'd have people come up to me and say, 'You're so strong, you're being so strong for your mom,' but you know, you do what you have to do. I kept myself busy."
C.J. was determined to stick by his mother. "When I went in the house, something hit me and I kind of closed up," he said. "I was making sure my mother was okay. I didn't have to worry so much about my sister because her boyfriend was there, and I was happy for that. I was looking out for my mother."
Long ago, in that thorough way of his, Cornell had explained to his wife what would happen should he be killed on duty. Army representatives were waiting for her when she returned home, and a casualty assistance officer was assigned to help make funeral arrangements and take care of bureaucratic chores. Baskets of sympathy cards arrived from soldiers around the world who had been inspired by Cornell.
The home-going service at Shiloh Christian Church in Stafford drew 2,000 people. Dawnita led a 300-person choir; C.J. accompanied on the piano. Donna was proud of her children, standing before so many people, speaking so movingly about their dad.
Ten days after their father died, they were both back at school.
"There was no choice," their mother said. "Cornell and I, we both always said, 'We're raising you guys to leave us.' I could've gotten real selfish and said, 'Look, I need my kids home.' But I couldn't do that. Their father would not have been pleased with that. They have their lives to live, and I have mine, whatever this new life is going to be."
C.J. had been particularly reluctant to go. Donna looked at her big, tall son, the star football player who played the piano with such feeling, and felt that she needed to release him somehow. During the past week, she had watched as well-meaning people patted him on the back and told him that he was "the man" now.
"I never wanted him to feel that kind of pressure," she said. "I told him, 'You'll never be the man of this house -- you'll always be the son of this house. But you're going to be the man of your own house someday.' "
Finally, she sent her best friend home, the friend who had reached her on the bus and driven 15 hours from Georgia to be with her, who illustrated how the bonds of military life sometimes were as strong as blood.
"She wasn't going to leave until I told her, 'You've got to get back to your family,' " Donna said. "And after she left, I remember being here by myself, and I sat up in that loft in my husband's chair and his blanket, and I slept in that chair all night."
Painful Reminders
Then there was a flurry of special days to get through, each one a numbing yet painful experience: Thanksgiving, the Gilmore's wedding anniversary on Dec. 4, what would have been Cornell's 46th birthday four days later, the first Christmas without him.
Thanksgivings had been huge, all those years on the military bases. Donna would cook for days, and Cornell would invite everyone they knew, as many as 60 people. Before they ate, he would make everyone hold hands and name something they were thankful for. Afterward, he would organize a Thanksgiving talent show. This time, the three Gilmores wearily visited relatives in Baltimore; Donna did not feel like cooking.
Sometimes, she could not help but wonder why things had happened this way, why her husband had to leave at such a prime time in their lives. She knew, she said, that "God's timing is his timing." But she still found herself counting the days of her new life as a widow, every day a small victory because she got through it.
She was thankful he had been so thrifty. With his pension, insurance and savings and her salary as a personnel security specialist, they would keep the house, and the children would remain in school. "He had his ducks in a row," she said. "It made it easier -- not easy, but easier."
But there were so many things to break her heart all over again. After her husband died, Donna learned that he had made plans for their wedding anniversary -- they had reservations for a long weekend in early December in Ocean City.
It hurt to know that his dog tags were lost, but a military friend in Korea had a special set made for her that she wore all the time. She would listen to Cornell's voice on the family answering machine -- "Greetings, everyone!" -- or hold the plaque he had given her the week before he left -- "Happiness is being married to your best friend" -- and the loneliness was bone-crushing.
"I don't know how anyone gets through this who doesn't have faith in God," she said.
The day of her anniversary -- Day 28 -- C.J.'s choral group was performing at school, and Donna decided to drive down to Raleigh to see him, declining friends' offers to accompany her. "It was kind of healing," she said. "I just talked to God and talked to my husband, all the way down to Raleigh and back."
C.J., aware of the day's significance, invited his mother on stage and gave her a bouquet of flowers. It was a lovely moment, Donna said, but there was always a downside. "Then you come home and you just crash," she said.
At college, her children also were feeling their way.
"When I got back to school, I was still at Day One," C.J. said. "I always felt at Day One. I mean, nothing was progressing. I actually talked to my favorite teacher -- I was ready to give up music and where I was going with my life. I wasn't sure if I was doing it for my father because I knew he would like it or if I was doing it because I loved music. I just had to stop and think."
One thing he knew for sure: Some of his happiest memories were of being with his dad in the empty church before choir practice on Saturday mornings, the two of them, working on their music.
Military Bonds
Day 82, in late January, found Donna Gilmore on a trip to Lacey, Wash., to the family's most recent post before the Pentagon, Fort Lewis. She and Cornell had been involved in a group that encouraged young African Americans to go to college, and she was invited back for a scholarship program and a tribute to her husband. She was able to be there, she said, "and not cry buckets of tears" only because she knew Cornell was now at "his permanent duty station."
Her ties to the military felt as strong as ever. Each time she heard of a new death in Iraq, she felt a stab of pain. When Pfc. Jerrick M. Petty, 25, of Idaho, whom she did not know, was killed Dec. 10, she wrote a message to his family on a commemorative Web site: "I know your heart hurts so much that at times it seems unbearable," she wrote. "Take heart, unfortunately there are a lot of us here who are personally going through the same thing."
But a dark thought sometimes filled her head.
"The one thing that angers me about everything is that probably, if the war had never been declared over, Cornell wouldn't have been over there," she said. "They wouldn't have had that type of inspection he was doing if we were still at war. "
Death, of course, is a prospect for any military family, the unspoken reality they all have to live with. Her husband had served in the 1st Armored Division in Desert Storm, but that conflict "had a totally different feel -- we didn't have the casualties," she said. In his position with the JAG Corps, the group that oversees the Army's courts and legal affairs, he had seemed safe from the current dangers.
"You hate to compare it to Vietnam," she said, " . . . but it seems to me we're a few little people in a big country that doesn't belong to us, where we can't tell sometimes who the enemy is."
Beyond that, the Gilmores are reluctant to criticize the military or the government. Donna said that although she will always "love the soldiers and their families, the military bureaucracy is what it is." Looking forward to voting in her first presidential election, Dawnita would not say which candidate she supports, only that everyone "should be sure to vote."
The fifth and sixth months passed, and Donna switched from counting days without her husband to counting months. C.J. decided to stick with his music after all; Dawnita seemed on a steady course. Cards still arrived from soldiers and their families. Reports of more military deaths in Iraq continued to lead the news.
Fridays, their old date night and the day on which he died, were still hard; Sundays, too, "because we lived in church." It was hard to hear her brothers-in-law speak on the telephone -- they sounded so much like Cornell, it made her catch her breath. She never knew when something would hit her like that: Just a few weeks ago, as she sat in her hairdresser's shop, Stevie Wonder came on the radio, singing "Ribbon in the Sky," one of the couple's special songs, and she had to leave the room quickly to break down in private.
She still talked to him. She thought about how she used to chide him for sneaking too many cookies, concerned for his health. "But now I tell him, 'Honey, I wish I could give you all the cookies you wanted right now.' "
Gradually, it became easier for the three family members to talk about him with other people, to sit and laugh and sometimes cry a little, surrounded by his photographs. There was still "a crash" afterward, they said, but it was not quite as devastating. They were sure sometimes they could hear him telling them to "come on, team!"
"Dad was not a bitter person -- the person I remember was the epitome of happiness," Dawnita said. "So why would I have a horrible life after this? Because you know, all there is left to do is stay focused on God's work . . . and number two, do everything Dad taught me.
"And like he always said," and here she paused and her mother and brother joined in to chant in unison Sgt. Maj. Gilmore's famous exit line: "Go forth -- and have a nice day."
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
there was no url to provide, article is by subscription
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. t r u t h o u t has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is t r u t h o u t endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
Read more
washingtonpost.com
For Va. Family, Perpetual Days Of Anguish Time Slow to Heal Pain Left by Soldier's Death
By Sue Anne Pressley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 7, 2004
That Friday morning in November, when Donna Gilmore heard the news reports that a U.S. Army helicopter had been shot down in Iraq, her heart ached to think what the families of the dead soldiers would be going through. As she waited inside her Stafford, Va., church, ready to leave for an out-of-town conference, she and her minister decided to pray.
"We prayed for the families," Gilmore said, "not knowing it was my own family I was praying for."
That was the beginning, Day One.
In a few hours, Gilmore would learn that her husband of 21 years and the father of her two college-age children had been aboard the Black Hawk UH-60 helicopter that crashed Nov. 7 in Tikrit, killing all six aboard. Army Command Sgt. Maj. Cornell W. Gilmore, 45, had been in Iraq just five days, for what amounted to a routine inspection tour. He was supposed to be gone a week.
More than 16 months after President Bush declared major combat in Iraq over, Gilmore and others are still dying there. Before that declaration, about 140 U.S. troops had died; since, more than 800 have fallen. Publicly, these deaths have prompted a bitter national divide. Privately, they have triggered a much more lasting pain.
The funerals have filled the news -- often young soldiers in the military a short time. Cornell Gilmore was different. He and his family had lived the military life for more than 20 years, and they knew, as his wife said, that "anyone in uniform is in jeopardy." He had fought on the front lines in the Persian Gulf War in 1991. But his family members had believed that in this conflict he was well-removed from danger, and now they are trying to reconcile their deep loyalty to the military with their sorrow over his death.
For this family and others, the experience is a struggle through time. Day One is one of the worst days, when the anguish is fresh and scalding. But there are many more bad days to come, a round of birthdays and anniversaries and holidays and ordinary times that will never be the same again, that stretch far beyond the funeral services and the surge of public attention.
Donna Gilmore, 43, and her children, Dawnita, 20, and Cornell II, or C.J., 18, have been navigating this altered life for almost 10 months. A close family who had lived on bases from Kansas to Germany to Hawaii, they are learning, as the days and months pass, to go on without their father and husband, their "team leader."
"I have had moments when I've been here by myself that have just been horrible, and you just cry out to God," Donna Gilmore said.
But "C.J. said something to me early on. He said, 'Mom, we're never going to get over this -- we just have to get on with life.' "
A Man of Big Smiles
Cornell "Gil" Gilmore, a tall, broad-shouldered man, would enter a room with a big smile and one of his signature lines, delivered with exclamation points. "Greetings, everyone! How are you?"
He had other phrases he liked to use, so closely identified with him that they were included on the back cover of his funeral program: "Come on, team!" "I got you covered." And his exit line, "Go forth -- and have a nice day."
He was known for his optimism, his love of baseball and gospel music, and his cookie habit. He believed in "life lessons" and being punctual. He went out every Friday night on a scheduled date with his wife, getting dressed up and enduring his children's taunts. He was tight with a dollar and loved his collection of cheap clunker cars, especially "The Blue Bomb," an old Chevrolet he took C.J. out in for father-son talks.
The youngest of 12 children who grew up in Baltimore, he had become the highest-ranking enlisted man and the highest-ranking African American in the Army's Judge Advocate General's Corps. But he had vowed that when he retired in a few years, he was going to be a Wal-Mart greeter.
"He meant it," said Dawnita, a junior at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte and a self-described "daddy's girl," who resembles her father. "My dad had worked very hard, and he was going to be a greeter -- he said he did that already."
He had joined the Army in 1981, after graduating from the University of Maryland at Baltimore. When he announced his plans to Donna, then his fiancee, she had no idea what military life would be like, but she was ready to give it a try. Dawnita was born on a memorably hot Fourth of July in Fort Polk, La.; C.J., 15 months later, when the family was posted to Germany.
An involved father, Gilmore coached youth teams in every sport. Church was important. As a skilled pianist, drummer, bass player and singer, he always took the lead in worship services, and for a time, he and the children formed a gospel group called G-3, which stood for both Gilmore 3 and God's 3. Donna and Cornell also had what they called "a marriage ministry," teaching a course on improving relationships to other couples.
Military life suited them. Gilmore advanced steadily, lauded for his leadership skills, sunny personality and kindness toward junior soldiers. The family made close friends wherever they lived, and although they joked that no one joined the military to get rich, it was for them a satisfying experience.
In 2002, Gilmore was transferred to the Pentagon, on what he planned as his final assignment. For the first time, the family was back in their home area in a position to buy a house. They chose a two-story model on a corner lot in Stafford. The kids were off at college. Evenings when they were free, Donna and Cornell would sit in their matching recliners, up in the loft of their new home, and talk.
The Pentagon job, unlike his previous posts, required a lot of traveling. When he telephoned his wife from London in early November, en route to Iraq, he reported with a laugh that his luggage had been lost.
Day One
Donna Gilmore was aboard the church bus, headed to a women's conference in Williamsburg later that awful Friday morning in November, when her cell phone rang. A friend in Fort Stewart, Ga., another military wife, had heard the ranks of the six helicopter-crash victims in Iraq. One was a regimental sergeant major in the JAG Corps. That could be only one person.
Gilmore telephoned the Pentagon. "I kind of forced the hand," she said. "I said, 'Look, I can't wait till I get home to have somebody tell me this news. I need to know now.' "
Finally, an officer told her, reluctantly, that they believed her husband had been involved in an incident.
The bus was already stopped in a parking lot.
"There was a clear sky, and I remember a field, and I didn't want anybody to touch me. I just wanted to go out and talk to God," Gilmore said. "And I remember I was crying and talking to him at the same time, 'Okay, God, you got me. You're going to have to have me because I don't know what else to do.'
"And I remember the second thing that came to my mind -- 'I've got to get to my children before they hear about this on the news.' "
Dawnita, at school in Charlotte, had awakened that morning, thinking about helicopters and wondering why such strange things would pop into her head. When her mother called, "I broke down," she said. "I just fell on the floor and I was crying like crazy."
Her boyfriend and other friends arrived and helped her pack her things. Outside the dorm, they joined hands in a circle and prayed. "The next thing I know, two carloads of us were heading out," she said.
C.J., who was a freshman at St. Augustine's College in Raleigh, N.C., was worried about writing a paper in the hour left before speech class when his mother reached him about noon.
"She told me there had been a helicopter crash," he said. "I thought, 'Okay, my dad's coming back with one arm.' Death was far away from my mind. I said, 'What happened?' and she said, 'He died,' and I just lost it. I was angry. My fists were balled up, and I was ready to hit something, but of course, I didn't."
The next days passed in a blur of activity. There was the funeral to prepare for, a home-going service, as the family called it. The house was full of people. The family kept up a stoic front.
"I never ever that whole week cried in front of anybody. I waited until I'd go to bed," Dawnita said. "I'd have people come up to me and say, 'You're so strong, you're being so strong for your mom,' but you know, you do what you have to do. I kept myself busy."
C.J. was determined to stick by his mother. "When I went in the house, something hit me and I kind of closed up," he said. "I was making sure my mother was okay. I didn't have to worry so much about my sister because her boyfriend was there, and I was happy for that. I was looking out for my mother."
Long ago, in that thorough way of his, Cornell had explained to his wife what would happen should he be killed on duty. Army representatives were waiting for her when she returned home, and a casualty assistance officer was assigned to help make funeral arrangements and take care of bureaucratic chores. Baskets of sympathy cards arrived from soldiers around the world who had been inspired by Cornell.
The home-going service at Shiloh Christian Church in Stafford drew 2,000 people. Dawnita led a 300-person choir; C.J. accompanied on the piano. Donna was proud of her children, standing before so many people, speaking so movingly about their dad.
Ten days after their father died, they were both back at school.
"There was no choice," their mother said. "Cornell and I, we both always said, 'We're raising you guys to leave us.' I could've gotten real selfish and said, 'Look, I need my kids home.' But I couldn't do that. Their father would not have been pleased with that. They have their lives to live, and I have mine, whatever this new life is going to be."
C.J. had been particularly reluctant to go. Donna looked at her big, tall son, the star football player who played the piano with such feeling, and felt that she needed to release him somehow. During the past week, she had watched as well-meaning people patted him on the back and told him that he was "the man" now.
"I never wanted him to feel that kind of pressure," she said. "I told him, 'You'll never be the man of this house -- you'll always be the son of this house. But you're going to be the man of your own house someday.' "
Finally, she sent her best friend home, the friend who had reached her on the bus and driven 15 hours from Georgia to be with her, who illustrated how the bonds of military life sometimes were as strong as blood.
"She wasn't going to leave until I told her, 'You've got to get back to your family,' " Donna said. "And after she left, I remember being here by myself, and I sat up in that loft in my husband's chair and his blanket, and I slept in that chair all night."
Painful Reminders
Then there was a flurry of special days to get through, each one a numbing yet painful experience: Thanksgiving, the Gilmore's wedding anniversary on Dec. 4, what would have been Cornell's 46th birthday four days later, the first Christmas without him.
Thanksgivings had been huge, all those years on the military bases. Donna would cook for days, and Cornell would invite everyone they knew, as many as 60 people. Before they ate, he would make everyone hold hands and name something they were thankful for. Afterward, he would organize a Thanksgiving talent show. This time, the three Gilmores wearily visited relatives in Baltimore; Donna did not feel like cooking.
Sometimes, she could not help but wonder why things had happened this way, why her husband had to leave at such a prime time in their lives. She knew, she said, that "God's timing is his timing." But she still found herself counting the days of her new life as a widow, every day a small victory because she got through it.
She was thankful he had been so thrifty. With his pension, insurance and savings and her salary as a personnel security specialist, they would keep the house, and the children would remain in school. "He had his ducks in a row," she said. "It made it easier -- not easy, but easier."
But there were so many things to break her heart all over again. After her husband died, Donna learned that he had made plans for their wedding anniversary -- they had reservations for a long weekend in early December in Ocean City.
It hurt to know that his dog tags were lost, but a military friend in Korea had a special set made for her that she wore all the time. She would listen to Cornell's voice on the family answering machine -- "Greetings, everyone!" -- or hold the plaque he had given her the week before he left -- "Happiness is being married to your best friend" -- and the loneliness was bone-crushing.
"I don't know how anyone gets through this who doesn't have faith in God," she said.
The day of her anniversary -- Day 28 -- C.J.'s choral group was performing at school, and Donna decided to drive down to Raleigh to see him, declining friends' offers to accompany her. "It was kind of healing," she said. "I just talked to God and talked to my husband, all the way down to Raleigh and back."
C.J., aware of the day's significance, invited his mother on stage and gave her a bouquet of flowers. It was a lovely moment, Donna said, but there was always a downside. "Then you come home and you just crash," she said.
At college, her children also were feeling their way.
"When I got back to school, I was still at Day One," C.J. said. "I always felt at Day One. I mean, nothing was progressing. I actually talked to my favorite teacher -- I was ready to give up music and where I was going with my life. I wasn't sure if I was doing it for my father because I knew he would like it or if I was doing it because I loved music. I just had to stop and think."
One thing he knew for sure: Some of his happiest memories were of being with his dad in the empty church before choir practice on Saturday mornings, the two of them, working on their music.
Military Bonds
Day 82, in late January, found Donna Gilmore on a trip to Lacey, Wash., to the family's most recent post before the Pentagon, Fort Lewis. She and Cornell had been involved in a group that encouraged young African Americans to go to college, and she was invited back for a scholarship program and a tribute to her husband. She was able to be there, she said, "and not cry buckets of tears" only because she knew Cornell was now at "his permanent duty station."
Her ties to the military felt as strong as ever. Each time she heard of a new death in Iraq, she felt a stab of pain. When Pfc. Jerrick M. Petty, 25, of Idaho, whom she did not know, was killed Dec. 10, she wrote a message to his family on a commemorative Web site: "I know your heart hurts so much that at times it seems unbearable," she wrote. "Take heart, unfortunately there are a lot of us here who are personally going through the same thing."
But a dark thought sometimes filled her head.
"The one thing that angers me about everything is that probably, if the war had never been declared over, Cornell wouldn't have been over there," she said. "They wouldn't have had that type of inspection he was doing if we were still at war. "
Death, of course, is a prospect for any military family, the unspoken reality they all have to live with. Her husband had served in the 1st Armored Division in Desert Storm, but that conflict "had a totally different feel -- we didn't have the casualties," she said. In his position with the JAG Corps, the group that oversees the Army's courts and legal affairs, he had seemed safe from the current dangers.
"You hate to compare it to Vietnam," she said, " . . . but it seems to me we're a few little people in a big country that doesn't belong to us, where we can't tell sometimes who the enemy is."
Beyond that, the Gilmores are reluctant to criticize the military or the government. Donna said that although she will always "love the soldiers and their families, the military bureaucracy is what it is." Looking forward to voting in her first presidential election, Dawnita would not say which candidate she supports, only that everyone "should be sure to vote."
The fifth and sixth months passed, and Donna switched from counting days without her husband to counting months. C.J. decided to stick with his music after all; Dawnita seemed on a steady course. Cards still arrived from soldiers and their families. Reports of more military deaths in Iraq continued to lead the news.
Fridays, their old date night and the day on which he died, were still hard; Sundays, too, "because we lived in church." It was hard to hear her brothers-in-law speak on the telephone -- they sounded so much like Cornell, it made her catch her breath. She never knew when something would hit her like that: Just a few weeks ago, as she sat in her hairdresser's shop, Stevie Wonder came on the radio, singing "Ribbon in the Sky," one of the couple's special songs, and she had to leave the room quickly to break down in private.
She still talked to him. She thought about how she used to chide him for sneaking too many cookies, concerned for his health. "But now I tell him, 'Honey, I wish I could give you all the cookies you wanted right now.' "
Gradually, it became easier for the three family members to talk about him with other people, to sit and laugh and sometimes cry a little, surrounded by his photographs. There was still "a crash" afterward, they said, but it was not quite as devastating. They were sure sometimes they could hear him telling them to "come on, team!"
"Dad was not a bitter person -- the person I remember was the epitome of happiness," Dawnita said. "So why would I have a horrible life after this? Because you know, all there is left to do is stay focused on God's work . . . and number two, do everything Dad taught me.
"And like he always said," and here she paused and her mother and brother joined in to chant in unison Sgt. Maj. Gilmore's famous exit line: "Go forth -- and have a nice day."
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
there was no url to provide, article is by subscription
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. t r u t h o u t has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is t r u t h o u t endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
Death Toll American Soldiers over 1,000 today
So today, September 7, 2004 marks another milestone in the war in Iraq. We have as of today, now lost more than 1,000 American soldiers. Young people, who won't be returning home to this free democracy we call the United States of America.
I'm not going to make an editorial here, more post to mark the treachery of an unelected President who has set us on an unwarranted war with unjust cause in the name of his unjust god...it's certainly not a God I recognize.
Can we Bring Them Home Now?
Or is the new acceptable loss number moved up to 2,000. When will our own public outcry be cohesive enough, loud enough to be heard and these unreasonable and unrealistic losses of our young be called to an end?
Do you want to ask a soldier to be the last to die for a lie?
by Lietta Ruger
Read more
I'm not going to make an editorial here, more post to mark the treachery of an unelected President who has set us on an unwarranted war with unjust cause in the name of his unjust god...it's certainly not a God I recognize.
Can we Bring Them Home Now?
Or is the new acceptable loss number moved up to 2,000. When will our own public outcry be cohesive enough, loud enough to be heard and these unreasonable and unrealistic losses of our young be called to an end?
Do you want to ask a soldier to be the last to die for a lie?
by Lietta Ruger
Monday, September 6, 2004
Real Stories from Real Americans: A Plea for Help
By Spiros D - Baghdad Straight Talk
Tuesday 31 August 2004
I am a soldier stationed in Iraq concerned about the role of private contractors in this war, and would like to ask for your help. How can you who are way over there help me way over here? Well, let me tell you how.
For those of you not aware, the US military is not the only US organization that is functioning over here in Iraq. A large US contractor called KBR (Kellog, Brown, and Root), a daughter company of Halliburton (once run by VP Dick Cheney), is operating on every US base in Iraq.
KBR manages many of the solider services that we have here on the base; things like running the food service, waste disposal, pumping the latrines, laundry services, movement and control, and the central distribution center. KBR is also scheduled to take over all fuel hauling and freight hauling in general. When things started to heat up earlier this year KBR put a hold on taking over hauling operations. Now that things are seeming to come back under some control KBR is looking at taking over again.
Now I know you are asking yourself what in the world this has to do with you.
Let me explain... KBR is now requesting, and the army is allowing, US soldiers to ride "shot gun" in KBR convoys hauling KBR goods all over Iraq. KBR is afraid to be out on the roads alone and want our US soldiers to risk their lives riding shot gun for their missions.
KBR is currently staffed by mainly non US international personnel along with a growing number of Iraqis. Most do not speak English, none have had military training on defensive driving, proper convoy operations, avoiding ambushes, navigating around IED's [hidden roadside bombs], proper procedure for calling in support or medivac or fire support, procedures to follow after taking enemy fire, the list goes on. These drivers are simply paid drivers that are making roughly 5 -8 times our wages and get paid whether the freight arrives or not.
KBR is requesting that US soldiers risk their lives at the hands of inexperienced and improperly trained individuals to provide them with security. Now there is no doubt that we need to protect KBR's missions but we have suggested and to date have been denied the opportunity to run the convoys with properly modified and equipped military vehicles.
We have suggested that we run in the convoys with every third vehicle being a US Army gun truck with proper drivers and fire support. With this arrangement KBR can still haul the freight in their vehicles but we would run the mission and deal with any situations as they develop the way we have been trained to. This is the only way that most of us want the missions to be run, the others are just afraid to be opposed to the decisions our leadership is making.
Here is where you come in. Out of a desire to honor the oath we took upon entering the army we do not want to disobey a direct order if and when the order comes for us to ride with KBR. We do however want to make all the lawmakers and politicians aware of the danger we are being unnecessarily exposed to on these missions.
Our hope is that each of our friends and loved ones back home will take a few minutes and send out emails to any local, state, and US congressman and senators and demand that they require the US military to stop this practice of allowing US troops in KBR vehicles.
The only ones who have the power to force the military to honor the wishes of the people are the lawmakers and politicians. So please take a moment and send a letter or email to one of your senators or congressman and ask or demand that they inquire into this matter and demand that it cease.
As of this writing, 3rd Platoon of the 283rd TC (my unit) is currently running these missions. We have been warned that it is only a matter of time and my whole unit will be running these missions. If nothing is done back home then more soldiers and myself in particular will be placed in unnecessary danger.
Please help.
Thank you for your time and help. I miss you all and look forward to seeing you all again upon my return.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/printer_090504A.shtml
Read more
By Spiros D - Baghdad Straight Talk
Tuesday 31 August 2004
I am a soldier stationed in Iraq concerned about the role of private contractors in this war, and would like to ask for your help. How can you who are way over there help me way over here? Well, let me tell you how.
For those of you not aware, the US military is not the only US organization that is functioning over here in Iraq. A large US contractor called KBR (Kellog, Brown, and Root), a daughter company of Halliburton (once run by VP Dick Cheney), is operating on every US base in Iraq.
KBR manages many of the solider services that we have here on the base; things like running the food service, waste disposal, pumping the latrines, laundry services, movement and control, and the central distribution center. KBR is also scheduled to take over all fuel hauling and freight hauling in general. When things started to heat up earlier this year KBR put a hold on taking over hauling operations. Now that things are seeming to come back under some control KBR is looking at taking over again.
Now I know you are asking yourself what in the world this has to do with you.
Let me explain... KBR is now requesting, and the army is allowing, US soldiers to ride "shot gun" in KBR convoys hauling KBR goods all over Iraq. KBR is afraid to be out on the roads alone and want our US soldiers to risk their lives riding shot gun for their missions.
KBR is currently staffed by mainly non US international personnel along with a growing number of Iraqis. Most do not speak English, none have had military training on defensive driving, proper convoy operations, avoiding ambushes, navigating around IED's [hidden roadside bombs], proper procedure for calling in support or medivac or fire support, procedures to follow after taking enemy fire, the list goes on. These drivers are simply paid drivers that are making roughly 5 -8 times our wages and get paid whether the freight arrives or not.
KBR is requesting that US soldiers risk their lives at the hands of inexperienced and improperly trained individuals to provide them with security. Now there is no doubt that we need to protect KBR's missions but we have suggested and to date have been denied the opportunity to run the convoys with properly modified and equipped military vehicles.
We have suggested that we run in the convoys with every third vehicle being a US Army gun truck with proper drivers and fire support. With this arrangement KBR can still haul the freight in their vehicles but we would run the mission and deal with any situations as they develop the way we have been trained to. This is the only way that most of us want the missions to be run, the others are just afraid to be opposed to the decisions our leadership is making.
Here is where you come in. Out of a desire to honor the oath we took upon entering the army we do not want to disobey a direct order if and when the order comes for us to ride with KBR. We do however want to make all the lawmakers and politicians aware of the danger we are being unnecessarily exposed to on these missions.
Our hope is that each of our friends and loved ones back home will take a few minutes and send out emails to any local, state, and US congressman and senators and demand that they require the US military to stop this practice of allowing US troops in KBR vehicles.
The only ones who have the power to force the military to honor the wishes of the people are the lawmakers and politicians. So please take a moment and send a letter or email to one of your senators or congressman and ask or demand that they inquire into this matter and demand that it cease.
As of this writing, 3rd Platoon of the 283rd TC (my unit) is currently running these missions. We have been warned that it is only a matter of time and my whole unit will be running these missions. If nothing is done back home then more soldiers and myself in particular will be placed in unnecessary danger.
Please help.
Thank you for your time and help. I miss you all and look forward to seeing you all again upon my return.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/printer_090504A.shtml
Pilot dead,flew Bush onto aircraft carrier, Mission Accomplished
One Who Won't Be Returning
September 05, 2004
As expressed in other letters to the editor, I, too, would like to thank everyone for their expression of concern for our troops.
But I am writing this letter for one of the approximately 1,000 troops who will not be returning. How do we show our support to them?
On Aug. 10, Indiana lost one of its finest, a loving father, husband, a person who loved his country, family, and his hometown.
Lt. Commander Scott Zellem was a great kid growing up here in Indiana, later a great student, a great athlete, a great U.S. Naval Academy graduate and then a great military pilot after receiving his wings in 1992 at Pensacola, Fla.
He flew his plane from different aircraft carriers, including the USS Independence and the USS Abraham Lincoln.
He flew combat missions over Iraq during several deployments, including Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, for which he was awarded the Air Medal.
He was such an excellent pilot that he was chosen to fly President Bush onto the deck of the USS Lincoln, where the president gave his famous speech declaring the end of combat in Iraq.
I might add that Scott is the son of Sally Zellem, retired director of the Indiana Chapter of the American Red Cross, who helped hundreds of Indiana County residents during their times of need.
I could tell you story after story about what Scott did to make all of Indiana so proud of him, but my daughter summed it up better than I on the Internet when she was asked to share stories about him along with the rest of his graduation class at Indiana High School.
In these times when all you hear are negative things about our young people it made me so proud to find out how close Scott's Indiana High School class is. My daughter wrote:
"I have thought over the past couple of weeks about Scott, and all my memories lead back to when we were very young. That is 5 or 6 years of age.
"Memories of spending the night at each other's homes. At Scott's home it was always wanting to have his (fuzzy) blanket. I would sleep on a cot next to his bed and he always shared his blanket with me, but he'd never part with it.
"At my home we thought we were special because we always got to eat breakfast at the dining room table.
"As years went by I realized it wasn't because of being 'special,' it was because my dad couldn't stand the sight or smell of the ketchup that Scott always put on his eggs.
"I'll never buy or see another bottle of ketchup without thinking of him.
"Scott was my Mack Park tennis partner, my purse trick partner, my snow-sledding partner, my co-Horace Mann jacks champ and my old folks home square-dance partner.
"But most of all, Scott was my friend. Together we learned at an early age how to act, how to trust others and the true meaning of friendship.
"For that I thank him because he was truly one of my first real friends.
"My husband's father passed away not too long ago and I came across this quote: 'When someone you love becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure.'
"Scott is a precious gem in my treasure of memories." (Angie Henry Hungate)
Lt. Commander Scott Zellem will be laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery on Sept. 7, about 1300 hours with full military honors.
Please join us by taking a few seconds out of your busy life and say a prayer for him, Jennifer, his wife; Tanner, his 1-year-old son; his mother and father, and the rest of his family.
Also during that prayer please keep the other 1,000 military personnel who will not be seeing the yellow ribbons or the rest of the outpouring of support we are showing for our troops.
In the old military movie the question is asked, "Where do we get these wonderful men?" That is an easy question to answer: our God.
Ronald HenryIndiana
©Indiana Printing & Publishing Co. 2004
Read more
September 05, 2004
As expressed in other letters to the editor, I, too, would like to thank everyone for their expression of concern for our troops.
But I am writing this letter for one of the approximately 1,000 troops who will not be returning. How do we show our support to them?
On Aug. 10, Indiana lost one of its finest, a loving father, husband, a person who loved his country, family, and his hometown.
Lt. Commander Scott Zellem was a great kid growing up here in Indiana, later a great student, a great athlete, a great U.S. Naval Academy graduate and then a great military pilot after receiving his wings in 1992 at Pensacola, Fla.
He flew his plane from different aircraft carriers, including the USS Independence and the USS Abraham Lincoln.
He flew combat missions over Iraq during several deployments, including Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, for which he was awarded the Air Medal.
He was such an excellent pilot that he was chosen to fly President Bush onto the deck of the USS Lincoln, where the president gave his famous speech declaring the end of combat in Iraq.
I might add that Scott is the son of Sally Zellem, retired director of the Indiana Chapter of the American Red Cross, who helped hundreds of Indiana County residents during their times of need.
I could tell you story after story about what Scott did to make all of Indiana so proud of him, but my daughter summed it up better than I on the Internet when she was asked to share stories about him along with the rest of his graduation class at Indiana High School.
In these times when all you hear are negative things about our young people it made me so proud to find out how close Scott's Indiana High School class is. My daughter wrote:
"I have thought over the past couple of weeks about Scott, and all my memories lead back to when we were very young. That is 5 or 6 years of age.
"Memories of spending the night at each other's homes. At Scott's home it was always wanting to have his (fuzzy) blanket. I would sleep on a cot next to his bed and he always shared his blanket with me, but he'd never part with it.
"At my home we thought we were special because we always got to eat breakfast at the dining room table.
"As years went by I realized it wasn't because of being 'special,' it was because my dad couldn't stand the sight or smell of the ketchup that Scott always put on his eggs.
"I'll never buy or see another bottle of ketchup without thinking of him.
"Scott was my Mack Park tennis partner, my purse trick partner, my snow-sledding partner, my co-Horace Mann jacks champ and my old folks home square-dance partner.
"But most of all, Scott was my friend. Together we learned at an early age how to act, how to trust others and the true meaning of friendship.
"For that I thank him because he was truly one of my first real friends.
"My husband's father passed away not too long ago and I came across this quote: 'When someone you love becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure.'
"Scott is a precious gem in my treasure of memories." (Angie Henry Hungate)
Lt. Commander Scott Zellem will be laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery on Sept. 7, about 1300 hours with full military honors.
Please join us by taking a few seconds out of your busy life and say a prayer for him, Jennifer, his wife; Tanner, his 1-year-old son; his mother and father, and the rest of his family.
Also during that prayer please keep the other 1,000 military personnel who will not be seeing the yellow ribbons or the rest of the outpouring of support we are showing for our troops.
In the old military movie the question is asked, "Where do we get these wonderful men?" That is an easy question to answer: our God.
Ronald HenryIndiana
©Indiana Printing & Publishing Co. 2004
To Whom it May Concern
By Brooke M. Campbell
Friday 03 September 2004
To Whom it May Concern,
I found out that my brother, Sergeant Ryan M. Campbell, was dead during a graduate seminar at Emory University on April 29, 2004. Immediately after a uniformed officer knocked at my mother's door to deliver the message that broke her heart, she called me on my cell phone. She could say nothing but "He's gone." I could say nothing but "No." Over and over again we chanted this refrain to each other over the phone as I made my way across the country to hold her as she wept.
I had made the very same trip in February, cutting classes to spend my brother's two weeks' leave from Baghdad with him. Little did I know then that the next time I saw him would be at Arlington National Cemetery. During those days in February, my brother shared with me his fear, his disillusionment, and his anger. "We had all been led to believe that Iraq posed a serious threat to America as well as its surrounding nations," he said. "We invaded expecting to find weapons of mass destruction and a much more prepared and well-trained Republican Guard waiting for us. It is now a year later, and alas, no weapons of mass destruction or any other real threat, for that matter."
Ryan was scheduled to complete his one-year assignment to Iraq on April 25. But on April 11, he emailed me to let me know not to expect him in Atlanta for a May visit, because his tour of duty had been involuntarily extended. "Just do me one big favor, ok?" he wrote. "Don't vote for Bush. No. Just don't do it. I would not be happy with you."
Last night, I listened to George W. Bush's live, televised speech at the Republican National Convention. He spoke to me and my family when he announced, "I have met with parents and wives and husbands who have received a folded flag, and said a final goodbye to a soldier they loved. I am awed that so many have used those meetings to say that I am in their prayers and to offer encouragement to me. Where does strength like that come from? How can people so burdened with sorrow also feel such pride? It is because they know their loved one was last seen doing good. Because they know that liberty was precious to the one they lost. And in those military families, I have seen the character of a great nation: decent, and idealistic, and strong."
This is my reply: Mr. President, I know that you probably still "don't do body counts," so you may not know that almost one thousand U.S. troops have died doing what you told them they had to do to protect America. Ryan was Number 832. Liberty was, indeed, precious to the one I lost-- so precious that he would rather have gone to prison than back to Iraq in February. Like you, I don't know where the strength for "such pride" on the part of people "so burdened with sorrow" comes from; maybe I spent it all holding my mother as she wept. I last saw my loved one at the Kansas City airport, staring after me as I walked away. I could see April 29 written on his sad, sand-chapped and sunburned face. I could see that he desperately wanted to believe that if he died, it would be while "doing good," as you put it. He wanted us to be able to be proud of him. Mr. President, you gave me and my mother a folded flag instead of the beautiful boy who called us "Moms" and "Brookster." But worse than that, you sold my little brother a bill of goods. Not only did you cheat him of a long meaningful life, but you cheated him of a meaningful death. You are in my prayers, Mr. President, because I think that you need them more than anyone on the face of the planet. But you will never get my vote.
So to whom it may concern: Don't vote for Bush. No. Just don't do it. I would not be happy with you.
Sincerely, Brooke M. Campbell Atlanta, GA
Kirksville, Missouri - A soldier from northeast Missouri was among eight killed April 29, 2004, in a car bombing in Iraq, the U.S. Department of Defense said Monday.
Sergeant Ryan M. Campbell, 25, of Kirksville, was a member of the Army's 4th Battalion, 27th Field Artillery Regiment, 1st Armored Division.
The soldiers were removing roadside bombs from a highway south of Baghdad. Campbell's mother, Mary Ann MacCombie of Kirksville, said the unit intercepted a station wagon crammed with 500 pounds of ammunition, and the driver detonated an explosive.
Campbell was stationed in Germany before he was sent to Iraq. He originally had been expected to return to the United States in April, but his duty in Iraq was extended three months.
"He's supposed to be home now," said MacCombie, recalling that her son called twice Wednesday, a day before he died. "His last words were, 'I'll be back in July.'"
Campbell joined the National Guard along with his best friend, Brendan McEvoy, several years ago. The pair enlisted in the Army in February 2002.
MacCombie said Campbell was an avid outdoorsman and a talented drummer who tried to assemble a band during his time in Germany. He graduated from Truman State University in Kirksville and planned to attend graduate school after completing his military service.
A memorial service will be Friday at Mary Immaculate Catholic Church in Kirksville. A specific time has not been set. Campbell will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Other soldiers killed in the attack were
Staff Sergeant Esau G. Patterson Jr., 25, of Ridgeland, South Carolina;
Staff Sergeant Jeffrey F. Dayton, 27, of Caledonia, Mississippi;
Specialist James L. Beckstrand, 27, of Escondido, California;
Specialist Justin B. Schmidt, 23, of Bradenton, Florida;
Private First Class Ryan E. Reed, 20, of Colorado Springs, Colorado;
Private First Class Norman Darling, 29, of Middleboro, Massachusetts;
and Private First Class Jeremy Ricardo Ewing, 22, of Miami, Florida.
Campbell, Ryan Montgomery SGT US Army Veteran Service Dates: February 2002 - April 2004 Date of Birth: 11/07/1978 Date of Death: 04/29/2004 Date of Internment: 05/11/2004 Buried at: Section 60 Site 7979 - Arlington National Cemetery
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/090604A.shtml
Read more
By Brooke M. Campbell
Friday 03 September 2004
To Whom it May Concern,
I found out that my brother, Sergeant Ryan M. Campbell, was dead during a graduate seminar at Emory University on April 29, 2004. Immediately after a uniformed officer knocked at my mother's door to deliver the message that broke her heart, she called me on my cell phone. She could say nothing but "He's gone." I could say nothing but "No." Over and over again we chanted this refrain to each other over the phone as I made my way across the country to hold her as she wept.
I had made the very same trip in February, cutting classes to spend my brother's two weeks' leave from Baghdad with him. Little did I know then that the next time I saw him would be at Arlington National Cemetery. During those days in February, my brother shared with me his fear, his disillusionment, and his anger. "We had all been led to believe that Iraq posed a serious threat to America as well as its surrounding nations," he said. "We invaded expecting to find weapons of mass destruction and a much more prepared and well-trained Republican Guard waiting for us. It is now a year later, and alas, no weapons of mass destruction or any other real threat, for that matter."
Ryan was scheduled to complete his one-year assignment to Iraq on April 25. But on April 11, he emailed me to let me know not to expect him in Atlanta for a May visit, because his tour of duty had been involuntarily extended. "Just do me one big favor, ok?" he wrote. "Don't vote for Bush. No. Just don't do it. I would not be happy with you."
Last night, I listened to George W. Bush's live, televised speech at the Republican National Convention. He spoke to me and my family when he announced, "I have met with parents and wives and husbands who have received a folded flag, and said a final goodbye to a soldier they loved. I am awed that so many have used those meetings to say that I am in their prayers and to offer encouragement to me. Where does strength like that come from? How can people so burdened with sorrow also feel such pride? It is because they know their loved one was last seen doing good. Because they know that liberty was precious to the one they lost. And in those military families, I have seen the character of a great nation: decent, and idealistic, and strong."
This is my reply: Mr. President, I know that you probably still "don't do body counts," so you may not know that almost one thousand U.S. troops have died doing what you told them they had to do to protect America. Ryan was Number 832. Liberty was, indeed, precious to the one I lost-- so precious that he would rather have gone to prison than back to Iraq in February. Like you, I don't know where the strength for "such pride" on the part of people "so burdened with sorrow" comes from; maybe I spent it all holding my mother as she wept. I last saw my loved one at the Kansas City airport, staring after me as I walked away. I could see April 29 written on his sad, sand-chapped and sunburned face. I could see that he desperately wanted to believe that if he died, it would be while "doing good," as you put it. He wanted us to be able to be proud of him. Mr. President, you gave me and my mother a folded flag instead of the beautiful boy who called us "Moms" and "Brookster." But worse than that, you sold my little brother a bill of goods. Not only did you cheat him of a long meaningful life, but you cheated him of a meaningful death. You are in my prayers, Mr. President, because I think that you need them more than anyone on the face of the planet. But you will never get my vote.
So to whom it may concern: Don't vote for Bush. No. Just don't do it. I would not be happy with you.
Sincerely, Brooke M. Campbell Atlanta, GA
Kirksville, Missouri - A soldier from northeast Missouri was among eight killed April 29, 2004, in a car bombing in Iraq, the U.S. Department of Defense said Monday.
Sergeant Ryan M. Campbell, 25, of Kirksville, was a member of the Army's 4th Battalion, 27th Field Artillery Regiment, 1st Armored Division.
The soldiers were removing roadside bombs from a highway south of Baghdad. Campbell's mother, Mary Ann MacCombie of Kirksville, said the unit intercepted a station wagon crammed with 500 pounds of ammunition, and the driver detonated an explosive.
Campbell was stationed in Germany before he was sent to Iraq. He originally had been expected to return to the United States in April, but his duty in Iraq was extended three months.
"He's supposed to be home now," said MacCombie, recalling that her son called twice Wednesday, a day before he died. "His last words were, 'I'll be back in July.'"
Campbell joined the National Guard along with his best friend, Brendan McEvoy, several years ago. The pair enlisted in the Army in February 2002.
MacCombie said Campbell was an avid outdoorsman and a talented drummer who tried to assemble a band during his time in Germany. He graduated from Truman State University in Kirksville and planned to attend graduate school after completing his military service.
A memorial service will be Friday at Mary Immaculate Catholic Church in Kirksville. A specific time has not been set. Campbell will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Other soldiers killed in the attack were
Staff Sergeant Esau G. Patterson Jr., 25, of Ridgeland, South Carolina;
Staff Sergeant Jeffrey F. Dayton, 27, of Caledonia, Mississippi;
Specialist James L. Beckstrand, 27, of Escondido, California;
Specialist Justin B. Schmidt, 23, of Bradenton, Florida;
Private First Class Ryan E. Reed, 20, of Colorado Springs, Colorado;
Private First Class Norman Darling, 29, of Middleboro, Massachusetts;
and Private First Class Jeremy Ricardo Ewing, 22, of Miami, Florida.
Campbell, Ryan Montgomery SGT US Army Veteran Service Dates: February 2002 - April 2004 Date of Birth: 11/07/1978 Date of Death: 04/29/2004 Date of Internment: 05/11/2004 Buried at: Section 60 Site 7979 - Arlington National Cemetery
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/090604A.shtml
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
