Bob Derga and his wife, Marla, join an Ohio ceremony honoring their son, Marine Cpl. Dustin A. Derga, and others
Posted on 05/03/2007 5:54:28 AM PDT by RDTF
When President Bush vetoed the war spending bill, he used Bob Derga's pen.
"It was just a plain old black rollerball," Derga said. "Just a $2 pen."
But it was priceless to Derga, an Ohio engineer who used it to write letters to his son in Iraq.
Cpl. Dustin A. Derga, a reservist with Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, was killed in a May 2005 assault just east of the Syrian border. For a grieving father, the pen remained a link to what he considers a young life lost for a good cause, and he wanted Bush to use it for a purpose.
It happened this way: On April 15, Derga and his wife, Marla, drove away from their home in Unionville, where a chiseled stone in Dustin's honor reads, "If love could have saved you, you would have lived forever." Derga was headed for a gathering the next day at the White House, where he hoped to have a minute with the president.
He had two principal objectives: the president's signature on Dustin's Purple Heart certificate and a chance to urge him to use the pen if Congress sent him a bill setting an October date to begin a U.S. military withdrawal.
-snip-
"He greeted each family as we came in, gave us a hug and shook hands," Derga said. "Very emotional meeting. . . . He was choked up."
-snip-
"I handed him the pen and looked him in the eye and I said, 'Mr. President, if this comes down to a veto, I want you to sign it with my pen.' He said, 'Yeah, I'll do it.' When we left, he was shaking everybody's hand. I said, 'I'm serious. I want you to do it.' He said, 'I will. I will.' "
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
In Veto Veritas.........
Bob Derga and his wife, Marla, join an Ohio ceremony honoring their son, Marine Cpl. Dustin A. Derga, and others
God bless him.
Nice story. Not getting that much play that I know of. But then I never watch the evening news or read the big city papers. In any case, you can imagine the reaction if this guy were a Cindy Sheehan type and told off the president or disagreed with his policy. He would be on every news and cable show and he would be the new celebrity of the moment.
I was glad to see this in the WaPo
The Washington Post just couldn’t go through with a 100% positive piece. Notice how they highlight the father works for DIEBOLD. How is this even relevent to the story.
Great story.
Great story about the veto pen.
Amen to a Great Patriot. God bless our brave troops.
Wow! That’s Paul Harvey’s “Rest of the story...” future material.
I hope it will be one day.
If you guys really want to puke all over your home, click on the “View all Comments” tab at the end of the story.
There are some real doozies. Like this one
“Since he urged Bush to sign the veto with the pen perhaps he should also have urged Bush to rename Taps to Dergas Dirge so that when it is played at some other persons son or daughter he can remember that he supported the decision to kill more Americans. I also think that he should have to write to all the loved ones who are dying for Iraqi OIL and the misguide belief that by sending our sons and daughters over there it makes them safer here. Religious fanatics have fought and killed each other for century and this mans son wont change that, and his STAY the course only means we ship them the targets instead of making them work for it. It seems most people did not learn from previous wars. Wars solve nothing except for the Arms Ammunition, and Casket Manufacturers.”
Do they really believe the things they say?
What a fabulous, fabulous story.
In their puffed-up, smug, self-righteous, panty-wadded way, yeah, they "believe" it.
Of course you have to understand that for leftist extremists (and for far-right extremists for that matter) the relation between belief and truth/facts is inverted. Normal people hold that a belief is valid if and because it corresponds with truth. Extremists hold a truth to be valid if and because it corresponds to (politically correct) belief.
:)
Liberals have so much hate in them that it has blinded their minds, their souls, and their hearts. I cannot believe that a group of people in this greatest nation in history have so much evil hate in them.
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