[Flora McDonald]

From the WT article:

"Richard Linn of Chesterfield, Va., said his son, Lance Cpl. Karl R. Linn, 20, was killed with three others from his unit in January 2005 in an ambush in Iraq's Anbar province.

"One thing Karl and I agreed on was, despite whatever reasons we've got [for being] over there, that the only thing to do was to finish the job correctly," he said. "And to that end, I support our efforts, and I support our troops to this day." "

Karl must be very proud of his dad. Blessings on them both.

[USMCPOP]

You mean I actually made sense? I relieved! I'm not used to speaking - I'm the strong, silent type (NYUCK, NYUCK, NYUCK).

Thanks to all for the support and sense of community, all. Otherwise I never would have made it this far. It was great meeting everyone.

I don't know if I mentioned it in the speech or not, but it occurred to me to do so on the drive up. It seemed to me to be almost exactly 2 years ago that I last saw Karl. I checked this morning. Yesterday was the second anniversary of Karl's flight out to Pendleton for final deployment training.

On the drive back, I felt the urge to be around Marines, so I ducked off at exit 148 and into Quantic for a few minutes.