Posted on 05/29/2005 3:27:07 AM PDT by Boston Blackie
TOMORROW NIGHT, in a special broadcast of ''Nightline," Ted Koppel will call the roll of the more than 900 US troops who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan during the past 12 months. As each name is read, viewers will see a photograph of the fallen soldier. Executive producer Tom Bettag says the program is meant to remind Americans, ''regardless of their feelings about the war, that the men and women who have given their lives in our behalf are individuals with names and faces."
Long lists of soldiers killed in wartime can have great emotional power, as anyone who has been to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington can attest. However dignified and moving, though, in the end such a listing can really describe them only as a group: They wore the uniform and died in the service of their country. But who they were individually, how they served, what they left behind -- that is more than a catalogue of names can convey.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
SEMPER FIDELIS AND GODSPEED E-5 RAFAEL!
REST NOW BROTHER.
PRAYERS FOR THE COMFORT OF YOUR FAMILY!
Let's see. What is a more fitting tribute? To have his name read by an aging stiff or to tell his story?
Let me think.....
[sarcasm off]
ABC should be asked why they don't have similar programs honoring police and firemen who have died in the line of service.
IF MY REAL THOUGHTS WHERE POSTED I WOULD BE BANNED FOR LIFE!
THE ONLY REASON TED AND THE BUNCH ARE EVEN ON IS BECAUSE OF RAFAEL AND THE MEN WHO HAVE FOUGHT FOR LIBERTY BEFORE HIM.
U.S.M.C. 74-80 MOS 2236
SEMPER FIDELIS!
GODSPEED!
HAVE A GREAT MEMORIAL DAY!
GODBLESS OUR TROOPS,COUNTRY AND PRESIDENT!
How 'bout instead we show a marathon of beheading videos, so the public can really see what's up over there?
I don't think Ted has our guys' best interests at heart, if he has a heart, that is.
Since we have to excerpt articles, I wish you had used the story of the Marine for your excerpt. It really is powerfully written.
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On the morning of Nov. 15, a week into the battle for Fallujah, his squad had cleared three houses without incident. They approached a fourth, kicking in two locked doors simultaneously and entering both front rooms. They found them empty. Another closed door led to an adjoining room. As the other Marines spread out, wrote Kaemmerer, ''Peralta, rifle in hand, tested the handle." It wasn't locked. He threw open the door, preparing to rush in -- and three terrorists with AK-47s opened fire. He was shot multiple times in the chest and face. As he fell, severely wounded, he managed to wrench himself out of the doorway to give his fellow Marines a clear line of fire.
The gunfire was deafening. To the sound of the terrorists' AK-47s was added the din of the Marines' M16 rifles and Squad Automatic Weapon, a machine gun. The battle was raging, with Peralta down and bleeding heavily and the other Marines firing into the back room at the enemy, when, in Kaemmerer's words, ''a yellow, foreign-made, oval-shaped grenade bounced into the room, rolling to a stop close to Peralta's nearly lifeless body."
As the other Marines tried to flee, Peralta reached for the grenade and tucked it into his gut. Seconds later, it exploded with such force that when his remains were returned to his family for burial, they were able to identify him only by the tattoo on his shoulder. But his five comrades-in-arms, shielded from the worst of the blast by Peralta's last act as a Marine, survived.
''Right now, people are really nice and everything," Peralta's 12-year-old sister Karen told a reporter 10 days after her brother's death. ''But I know that when it comes to later on, they are going to forget him. They're going to forget about him."
What is the MOS 2236?
BOMB DISPOSAL!
GODBLESS OUR VETS!
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