SEAL's Tragic Love

The New York Post ^ | July 8, 2005 | SELIM ALGAR

[YaYa123]

War didn't scare heroic Navy SEAL Michael Murphy. What really scared him was popping the question to his girlfriend of five years, Heather Duggan. Murphy, a Long Islander who achieved his childhood dream of becoming a SEAL only to be killed last month in Afghanistan, had carried the Tiffany engagement ring in his pocket for four months.

He finally got down on bended knee before Duggan at the tree in Rockefeller Center on the day after Christmas 2003

[YaYa123]

I probably wouldn't have found this NYP article on my own. Thanks again to ken5050 for pointing it out. And after reading it, and seeing the picture included, how could anyone doubt America has produced another "greatest generation"?

[RushCrush]

I'd like to read the article but I really don't want to register with the Post. Bummer.

[RushCrush]

Very, very sad, but a true hero. Thank you for posting.

[Admin Moderator]

FYI .. Articles from the NY Post cannot be posted in full

[conservative cat]

Go to bugmenot.com to get a user name/password. It's a great help!

[saquin]

This SEAL was from Long Island and Newsday had a touching article about him. It seems he had appeared in a photo in Newsday as a baby back on Mother's Day 1976.

Mrs. Maureen Murphy with new baby Michael Patrick at St. John's Hospital in Smithtown. (Newsday File Photo/Joe Dombroski) May 8, 1976

It was two days before Mother's Day in 1976 when 23-year-old Maureen Murphy gave birth to her first child. She'd wanted a particular kind of baby and got it.

"I prayed to God for a bald-headed baby," she said in a Newsday story published that Mother's Day. "I left a note on my dresser saying, 'Please God, give me a bald-headed baby,' and I got one."

Born at 5:59 a.m. on May 7 at St. John's Smithtown Hospital, her son was 7 pounds, 15 ounces. She and her husband Daniel gave him what she called a nice Irish name, Michael Patrick.

He would grow up and join the U.S. Navy and become a SEAL. He would go fight in Afghanistan as a commando. He would go missing June 28. And on Monday he would be found dead.

Back 29 years ago, his mother had been nervous. And excited about motherhood. And she held high expectations for her first-born. "His father is a lawyer, so he wants him to be a lawyer, too," Maureen Murphy said. "I just want to be proud of him when he grows up."

Yesterday, his father said they were proud indeed.

"We were just honored to have him as a son for 29 years," Daniel Murphy said.

Navy Seal Michael P. Murphy in the 1994 Patchogue-Medford High School yearbook. He was killed fighting in Afganistan.

Navy SEAL from LI killed in Afghanistan

[SilentServiceCPOWife]

"I left a note on my dresser saying, 'Please God, give me a bald-headed baby,' and I got one."

Tears.

[YaYa123]

thank you so much for the lovely and touching addition to the information on this young man.

[fortunecookie]

What a touching story. Michael Murphy is truly a hero.

[litehaus]

Bless ALL our men in uniform!