In Memoriam

[Grace]

DoD Identifies Navy Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a sailor who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Petty Officer 3rd Class David M. Mudge, 22, of Sutherlin, Ore., died Nov. 28, in a non-hostile accident aboard USS Rentz while in Jebel Ali, United Arab Emirates.

[Grace]

29 November 2009

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Pfc. Derrick D. Gwaltney, 21, of Cape Coral, Fla., died Nov. 29 south of Basra, Iraq, of injuries sustained from a non-combat related incident. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 377th Field Artillery Regiment, 17th Fires Brigade, Fort Lewis, Wash.

The circumstances surrounding the incident are under investigation.

[Grace]

1 December 2009

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Lance Cpl. Jonathan A. Taylor, 22, of Jacksonville, Fla., died Dec. 1 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.

[Grace]

UNITED KINGDOM

30 November 2009

Acting Sgt. John Paxton Amer, 30, Sunderland, England. No. 1 Company, 1st Battalion, Coldstream Guards

Died of wounds sustained in an explosion in the Babaji area of Helmand province, Afghanistan.

[Grace]

1 December 2009

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Sgt. Kenneth R. Nichols Jr., 28, of Chrisman, Ill., died Dec. 1 in Kunar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit using small arms and rocket-propelled grenade fires. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colo.

[Grace]

#100 from the United Kingdom

7 December 2009

It is with deep regret that the Ministry of Defence must confirm that Lance Corporal Adam Paul Drane, 23, from 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment was killed in Afghanistan on Monday 7 December 2009.

Lance Corporal Drane died whilst carrying out security duties at Check Point Paraang in southern Nad e-Ali, Helmand province.

[Grace]

From the NY Times

December 8, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
A Fearful Price
By BOB HERBERT

I spoke recently with a student at Columbia who was enthusiastic about the escalation of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. He argued that a full-blown counterinsurgency effort, which would likely take many years and cost many lives, was the only way to truly win the war.

He was a very bright young man: thoughtful and eager and polite. I asked him if he had any plans to join the military and help make this grand mission a success. He said no.

There was an article in The Times on Monday about a new study showing that the eight years of warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan were taking an emotional toll on the children of service members and that the difficulties increased the longer parents were deployed.

There is no way that the findings of this study should be a surprise to anyone. It just confirms that the children of those being sent into combat are among that tiny percentage of the population that is unfairly shouldering the entire burden of these wars.

The idea that fewer than 1 percent of Americans are being called on to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq and that we’re sending them into combat again and again and again — for three tours, four tours, five tours, six tours — is obscene. All decent people should object.

We already knew that in addition to the many thousands who have been killed or physically wounded, hundreds of thousands have returned with very serious psychological wounds: deep depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and so on. Other problems are also widespread: alcohol and drug abuse, family strife, homelessness.

The new study, by the RAND Corporation, was published in the journal Pediatrics. The children surveyed were found to have higher levels of emotional difficulties than their peers in the general population.

According to the study:

“Older youth and girls of all ages reported significantly more school, family and peer-related difficulties with parental deployment. Length of parental deployment and poorer non-deployed caregiver mental health were significantly associated with a greater number of challenges for children, both during deployment and deployed parent reintegration.”

The air is filled with obsessive self-satisfied rhetoric about supporting the troops, giving them everything they need and not letting them down. But that rhetoric is as hollow as a jazzman’s drum because the overwhelming majority of Americans have no desire at all to share in the sacrifices that the service members and their families are making. Most Americans do not want to serve in the wars, do not want to give up their precious time to do volunteer work that would aid the nation’s warriors and their families, do not even want to fork over the taxes that are needed to pay for the wars.

To say that this is a national disgrace is to wallow in the shallowest understatement. The nation will always give lip-service to support for the troops, but for the most part Americans do not really care about the men and women we so blithely ship off to war, and the families they leave behind.

The National Military Family Association, which commissioned the RAND study, has poignant comments from the children of military personnel on its Web site.

You can tell immediately how much more real the wars are to those youngsters than to most Americans:

“I hope it’s not him on the news getting hurt.”

“Most of my grades dropped because I was thinking about my dad, because my dad’s more important than school.”

“Mom will be in her room and we hear her crying.”

The reason it is so easy for the U.S. to declare wars, and to continue fighting year after year after year, is because so few Americans feel the actual pain of those wars. We’ve been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan longer than we fought in World Wars I and II combined. If voters had to choose right now between instituting a draft or exiting Afghanistan and Iraq, the troops would be out of those two countries in a heartbeat.

I don’t think our current way of waging war, which is pretty easy-breezy for most citizens, is what the architects of America had in mind. Here’s George Washington’s view, for example: “It must be laid down as a primary position and the basis of our system, that every citizen who enjoys the protection of a free government owes not only a proportion of his property, but even his personal service to the defense of it.”

What we are doing is indefensible and will ultimately exact a fearful price, and there will be absolutely no way for the U.S. to avoid paying it.

[Grace]

United Kingdom

7 December 2009

Lance Cpl. Adam Drane, 23, of Bury St Edmunds, England.
Serving with Company C, 1st Battalion, The Royal Anglian Regiment.

Killed while carrying out security duties at Check Point Paraang in the southern Nad e-Ali district of Helmand province, Afghanistan, on December 7, 2009

[Grace]

5 December 2009

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Sgt. Elijah J. Rao, 26, of Lake Oswego, Ore., died Dec. 5 in Nuristan, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 77th Field Artillery Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colo.

[Grace]

8 December 2009

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Cpl. Xhacob Latorre, 21, of Waterbury, Conn., died Dec. 8 of wounds sustained while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.

[Grace]

7 December 2009

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

Staff Sgt. Dennis J. Hansen, 31, of Panama City, Fla., died Dec. 7 at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Landstuhl, Germany, of wounds sustained when insurgents attacked his unit Dec. 3 with an improvised explosive device in Logar province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), Fort Drum, N.Y.

[Grace]

8 December 2009

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Sgt. Ralph Anthony Webb Frietas, 23, of Detroit, Mich., died Dec 8. as a result of unknown causes in Baghdad. He was assigned to Marine Wing Support Squadron 172, Marine Wing Support Group 17, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, III Marine Expeditionary Force, Okinawa, Japan.

The incident is under investigation.

[Daisy and Delilah]

Bless the families of these fallen soldiers. They will spend Christmas without them this year.

Gretchen, thank you again.

A giant thank you again to all our troops. No matter where you are stationed, we love you and support you all.

[Grace]

11 December 2009

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Pfc. Jaiciae L. Pauley, 29, of Austell, Ga., died Dec. 11 in Kirkuk, Iraq, of injuries sustained from a non-combat related incident. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart, Ga.

The circumstances surrounding the incident are under investigation.

[Grace]

10 December 2009

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Pvt. Jhanner A. Tello, 29, of Los Angeles, Calif., died Dec. 10 in Baghdad, Iraq, of injuries sustained from a non-combat related incident. He was assigned to the 3rd Aviation Support Battalion, 227th Aviation Regiment, 1st Air Cavalry Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.

The circumstances surrounding the incident are under investigation.