Results 1 to 2 of 2

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

  1. #1
    Senior Member NCByrd's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    North Carolina
    Posts
    892

    Fallen Soldiers Coming Home

    Coming Home: Seven Families Lay Their Fallen Soldiers to Rest. A Photo Essay
    Anthony Swofford

    PHOTOS AT BOTTOM

    For a moment, imagine the coffins empty, the burial grounds free of people, free of despair. Imagine the young men and their young bodies doing the work of youth. Imagine the parents watching a television drama or chatting on the porch with their neighbors. Pretend the death-folded flags are stacked on a sergeant’s supply shelf, gathering dust rather than grief.

    This is, of course, a foolish and dangerous game. It’s the game the Bush administration would prefer we play, but more corpses are en route, and more broken bodies, shattered psyches, damaged souls.

    My combat death fantasies began before I joined the Marine Corps. They started with Platoon, and the not-so-friendly-fire casualty of Sergeant Elias, his arms outstretched in martyrdom and splendor. Willem Dafoe’s character had fought both the Viet Cong and the Army’s own demons with veracity and courage. Good men die tragically, and the best die in combat. I’d grown up around the military, and, without being aware of it, internalized the military’s obscene power and culture. I had pallets full of honor and sacrifice waiting on the docks, manifested for shipment to lands foreign, dangerous, and strange. My father had survived combat in Vietnam, but I might go fight for my country and die, tragically and heroically—I’d die in the storied bloody fields of American history where my father had not.

    By the time I arrived in Saudi Arabia to fight in the 1991 Gulf War, my fantasies had been replaced by the very real facts that surrounded me, in the buildup of troops and the matériel carried on my body: rifle, pistol, grenades, a radio with which I might call in 500-pound bombs. I was here to kill, and people on the other side of that sand berm wanted to kill me. The romance of a combat death evaporates when combat arrives.

    I wonder, then, when the men and woman whose burials we see in these photographs lost their romantic attachment to combat, killing, and death, their own death and the deaths of others. Be certain that at some point they entertained such fantasies. Perhaps only for a few days of basic training; possibly, like me, until they landed in theater.

    Most combat fatalities are neither storied nor spectacular. Spc. Martin Kondor and Spc. Bert Hoyer died while traveling in vehicles that were hit with improvised explosive devices (IED), as the military calls them, or roadside bombs, which is a clearer definition. Kondor acted as a bodyguard for an infantry colonel whose job it was to spread American good will to the Iraqi people. The colonel was fortunate enough to survive. Pfc. Luis Moreno was shot while guarding a gas station. Dominican by birth, he was awarded U.S. citizenship posthumously. Staff Sgt. Scott Rose died when the Black Hawk helicopter he served on went down. The Humvee that Pvt. Bryan Nicholas Spry was driving crossed a bridge that crumbled under the vehicle. Three of his comrades swam to safety, but Spry was unconscious, and his lungs filled with water. Pfc. Bruce Miller, Jr. died from a noncombat gunshot wound; his death is still under investigation. Less than two years had passed since Army cook Spc. Tyanna Avery-Felder married Spc. Adrian Felder. She also died from an IED while driving in a convoy, reportedly delivering meals to troops, meals she hadn’t prepared because the Army had hired civilian contractors to do the cooking. Nothing like being cooked out of your job by the lowest bidder. (At the World War I Battle of Belleau Wood, U.S. Marine Corps band members were initially called into duty as riflemen, but when the commanding officer realized he was losing his horn players at an alarming rate, he orderedthe band back to headquarters—they were needed for a Fourth of July parade in Paris a few weeks later.)

    The colleagues of these fallen would have been asked to pack their personal belongings for shipment home. Long before they were killed, the dead would have been advised to discard any paraphernalia they didn’t want people back home to receive. Every soldier carries a private self that even his closest loved ones will never know.

    And they should not. Shortly after their deaths, the unit armorer assigned their weap-ons to someone else in the battalion, a new guy. Imagine receiving a dead man’s rifle for your first combat patrol. The combatant dies, but his killing tools are passed on.

    The flag-draped coffins arrive at Dover Air Force Base prior to being shipped to their burial locations. If a military burial is chosen, soldiers from a local unit will perform the ceremony. It is unlikely that the dead soldier would have known these people. His friends are back in Iraq.

    Soldiers in this war have died in all four seasons. Some burials have taken place in the bitter cold, and during others it’s been warm enough for women to wear light dresses. But the end result is the same: a body in the ground, a family struck with grief, a mother or sister or wife or husband holding a flag folded in the tight red, white, and blue triangle that means death.
















    http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature ... ghome.html

    WE MUST HELP DEFEND OUR COUNTRY SO THAT THESE SOLDIERS WILL NOT HAVE DIED IN VAIN.

  2. #2
    Banned
    Join Date
    Jan 2007
    Location
    South Western Ohio
    Posts
    5,278
    The soldier stood and faced God
    which must always come to pass.
    He hoped his shoes were shining
    just as brightly as his brass.

    "Step forward now, young soldier
    how shall I deal with you?
    Have you always turned the other cheek?
    To My Church have you been true?"

    The soldier squared his shoulders and said,
    "No, Lord, I guess I ain't.
    Because those of us who carry guns
    can’t always be a saint.

    I've had to work most Sundays
    and at times my talk was tough.
    And sometimes I've been violent
    because the world is awfully rough.

    But, I never took a penny
    that wasn't mine to keep...
    Though I worked a lot of overtime
    when the bills got just too steep.

    And I never passed a cry for help
    though at times I shook with fear.
    And sometimes, God, forgive me,
    I've wept unmanly tears.

    I know I don't deserve a place
    among the people here.
    They never wanted me around
    except to calm their fears.

    If you've a place for me here, Lord,
    It needn't be so grand.
    I never expected or had too much,
    But if you don't, I'll understand."

    There was a silence all around the throne
    where the saints had often trod.
    As the soldier waited quietly
    for the judgment of his God.

    "Step forward now, young soldier,
    You've borne your burdens well.
    Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
    You've done your time in Hell."

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •