In Memoriam

[Grace]

Northern Ireland

Ranger David Dalzell

From: Bangor, County Down
Age: 20
Unit: Company A, 1st Battalion, The Royal Irish Regiment
Died: February 4, 2011

Died as a result of an operational accident while working in Check Point Ranger near the village of Saidabad in the Nad-e Ali district of Helmand province, Afghanistan.

[Grace]

England

Warrant Officer Class 2 Colin Beckett

From: Peterborough, England
Age: 36
Unit: Company sergeant major, Company C, 3rd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment
Died: February 5, 2011

Killed when a roadside bomb detonated as he was moving into position to cover his fellow patrol members near Shaheed, a village on the Nahr-e Bughra canal in the Nad-e Ali district of Helmand province, Afghanistan.

[Grace]

5 February 2011

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

Cpl. Lucas T. Pyeatt, 24, of West Chester, Ohio, died Feb. 5 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to the 2nd Radio Battalion, II Marine Expeditionary Force Headquarters Group, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.

[Grace]

7 February 2011

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

Lance Cpl. Aaron M. Swanson, 21, of Jamestown, N.Y., died Feb. 7 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, Marine Forces Reserve, Buffalo, N.Y.

[phesina]

Thank you for keeping this memorial thread going, Gretchen, and for including their photographs now too. God bless you and them.

I check it every day. How much longer, how many more?

[Grace]

7 February 2011

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

Sgt. Patrick R. Carroll, 25, of Norwalk, Ohio, died Feb. 7 in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 319th Military Intelligence Battalion, 525th Battlefield Surveillance Brigade, XVIII Airborne Corps, Fort Bragg, N.C.

[Grace]

World War II

Airmen Missing in Action From WWII Identified

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced today that the remains of 11 U.S. servicemen, missing in action from World War II, have been identified and are being returned to their families for burial with full military honors.

Army Air Forces Technical Sgt. Charles A. Bode, 23, Baltimore, will be buried on Feb. 11 in Arlington National Cemetery. On Nov. 20, 1943, Bode, along with 10 other B-24D Liberator crew members, took off from Jackson Airfield, Port Moresby, New Guinea, on an overwater mission near the northern coast of the country. During the mission, the only radio transmission from the crew indicated they were 20 miles northwest of Port Moresby, but they did not return to Jackson Airfield. Subsequent searches failed to uncover any evidence of either the crew or the aircraft.

Following the war, the Army Graves Registration Service conducted investigations and searches for 43 missing airmen including Bode and the other 10 airmen, but concluded in June 1949 that all were unrecoverable.

In 1984, the government of Papua New Guinea notified U.S. officials of a World War II crash site in a ravine in Morobe Province. A U.S. search and recovery team investigated the crash site in late 1984 and located B-24 aircraft wreckage. They also recovered human remains but were unable to complete the mission due to time constraints and the threat of landslides. From that time until 2004, multiple teams from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) attempted to access and excavate the location but the threat of landslides made recovery too dangerous to continue. During a site visit in 2004, local villagers turned over human remains they had previously removed from the area.

In addition to Bode’s individual burial, the crew -

1st Lt. Richard T. Heuss, 23, Berkley, Mich.;
2nd Lt. Robert A. Miller, 22, Memphis, Tenn.;
2nd Lt. Edward R. French, 23, Erie, Pa.;
2nd Lt. Robert R. Streckenbach, Jr., 21, Green Bay, Wis.;
Tech. Sgt. Lucian I. Oliver, Jr., 23 Memphis, Tenn.;
Staff Sgt. Ivan O. Kirkpatrick, 36, Whittier, Calif
Staff Sgt. William K. Musgrave, 24, Hutsonville, Ill.;
Staff Sgt. James T. Moran, 21, Sloatsburg, N.Y.;
Staff Sgt. James B. Moore, 21, Woburn, Mass.;
and Staff Sgt. Roy Surabian, 24, Medford, Mass.,

will be buried as a group on March 24 at Arlington National Cemetery.

Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used mitochondrial DNA in the identification of Bode’s remains.

At the end of World War II, the U.S. government was unable to recover and identify approximately 79,000 Americans. Today, more than 74,000 are unaccounted-for from the conflict.

[Daisy and Delilah]

Thank you for keeping this memorial thread going, Gretchen, and for including their photographs now too. God bless you and them.

I check it every day. How much longer, how many more?

Isn't it the truth?? Yes, thank you, Gretchen. I'm just paralyzed to know that this is still happening.

[Grace]

17 February 2011

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

Staff Sgt. Bradley C. Hart, 25, of Perrysburg, Ohio died February 17 at Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti, Africa, of injuries sustained in a non combat incident. He was assigned to the U.S. Army Special Operations Command, Fort Bragg, N.C.

[Grace]

Thank you for keeping this memorial thread going, Gretchen, and for including their photographs now too. God bless you and them.

I check it every day. How much longer, how many more?

Isn't it the truth?? Yes, thank you, Gretchen. I'm just paralyzed to know that this is still happening.

Perhaps this article might answer your questions - or raise more?

From Politico -

Spouses of service members are badly stressed from years of long deployments — so stressed that some have taken their own lives. Children who’ve had a parent away at war for almost their entire conscious lives are leaving home to go off to college. And the troops themselves continue to struggle with substance abuse, post-traumatic stress, and devastating physical and mental wounds.

Some of Washington’s top national security leaders are worried that Americans don’t know — or worse, don’t care.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories...#ixzz1EYI4mccK