Posted on 05/04/2016 6:02:18 AM PDT by xzins
The U.S. Navy SEAL who was killed by Islamic State militants in Iraq on Tuesday “felt called” to return to the war-torn country after the extremists group’s atrocities, according to his grandfather Bill Holmes.
Charlie Keating IV “decided he wanted to go back,” Mr. Holmes said in an interview.
Mr. Keating, the grandson of Charles Keating Jr., who served time in prison as a result of the 1980s savings and loan scandals, had been an instructor at a base in California before he left for Iraq earlier this year.
The 31-year-old had joined the SEALs “because it was the hardest thing to do,” Mr. Holmes said. He was planning to marry in November upon his return.
Mr. Holmes said Mr. Keating had to live down the infamy of his grandfather, even enduring taunts from crowds during a track-and-field event where he was competing when he was younger.
“He’s proud of the name, but he had nothing to do with all that,” Mr. Holmes said. It was “unfair to a guy who gave his life for this country” to keep talking about his family’s past,
He went on to attend Indiana University on a track and cross-country scholarship where he competed in the mile run, before leaving to join the military.
“When Charlie left IU to enlist and try to become a SEAL, I don’t think it really surprised any of us,” said Robert Chapman, a professor at Indiana University, Bloomington, who served as the men’s cross-country coach from 1998 until 2007. “You could tell he was a guy who wanted to be the best and find out what he was made of, and serving as special-operations forces for his country embodied that.”
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
#2 has nothing to do with a hero’s death.
Nice rewriting of the the facts. Iraq was a big problem under Husseign. He murdered his people and took over another country. He refused to follow his agreed surrender terms and funded suicide bombers in Israel. Offered something to the tune of $50,000 per bombing to the families. He was a cancer. He and his sons were vicious. He was declared an enemy by three consecutive presidents of both parties. Removing him was not a feud between families.
Ya know .....
FWIW, there’s a lot of folks that raised a whole lot of heck about a little country named Vietnam, and why we shouldn’t have gone there, at that time, too.
The difference between some raghead dictator in some country amidst an ocean of sand, and Vietnam, was that there was a larger game behind Vietnam, called stopping the growth of Communism.
Nowadays, with self-avowed Communists in the seats of both the Senate and the House of Representatives, as well as dreamers thinking they can become president, some folks just don’t think of the 50,000 plus sacrificed souls that stopped that Communist growth.
The tinhorn iraqi should have been left to the Mossad, which would have done it quicker and quieter than we did.
Still not worth it. And we should save that discussion for another thread.
Barack Obama: murderer of Americans.
To be continued....
.
American troops should be unleashed to FIGHT, not "ADVISE". American troops should be surrounded by other American troops, not turncoat ragheads hellbent on killing us for their pedophile idol!
Keating Jr. was a hero. God bless him.
Terrorists seem to think Iraq is important, whether there was WMD or not. I don’t think these animals are going to stop until they are all dead or we are. Iraq itself is important strategically itself as well.
What a horrible thing to post! This brave young man did nothing to you but protect you and your family. Shame on you!
Every President going back to Reagan and before knew exactly how evil Saddam was. But he was a useful counterweight to Iran.
I remember him from my daughter’s track meets. She was a pole vaulter and he was a runner at competing high schools. He had a killer smile and just seemed like a happy guy. So sad to hear this. RIP, sailor.
Track is such an honest sport. It breeds people with at least one streak of reality in their lives.
I said nothing bad about the Navy Seal, nor his death.
I DID say that his grandad, if you do your research, was one of the theiving bassards of THE KEATING FIVE, to include Sen. John McCain, and their theiving money scandal, by which they DID steal my money, and i scriptually have no love for them!!
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