U.S. Troops in Iraq mourn slain female soldier

Sign On San Diego ^ | 10/03/03 | Reuters

[milemark]

U.S. troops in Iraq mourn slain female soldier

REUTERS

6:20 a.m. October 3, 2003

TIKRIT, Iraq

Hundreds of U.S. troops held a memorial service Friday at their base in one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces in Iraq to mourn a female soldier killed by a roadside bomb.

Private Analaura Esparzo-Gutierrez, 21, was killed on Wednesday when the blast hit the Humvee vehicle she was driving outside the base in Tikrit, Saddam's home town. Three other soldiers were wounded.

A U.S. Army spokeswoman said Esparzo-Gutierrez was the fourth female U.S. soldier to die in combat operations since the start of the war and the first killed in action since President Bush declared major combat over on May 1.

Esparzo-Gutierrez, from Houston, Texas, had arrived in Iraq on April 5 for a one-year tour.

Colleagues said she joined the army in 2002 and was engaged to a fellow soldier who had left Iraq on leave just a month ago.

The pair had planned to finish their one-year tour and then marry on their return to the United States where Esparzo-Gutierrez hoped to study to become a doctor.

"You were a friend to all," Sgt. Kendrick Morgan said in a poem he read at the service. "I know you made your parents proud."

[Dante3]

I'm with you. and prayers for this brave woman and her family.

[latrans]

I agree, but it could be pulled. Highly innapropriate.
My best friend was killed by an improvised device while driving his tank retriever on a volunteer rescue mission.
That was March 27 1868 in Viet Nam. I feel the same pain
each time it happens to someone in Iraq. What can be done?

[PigRigger]

"As the mother of an Airman - who happens to be female."

To me your daughter is a proud American who I have much respect for.

May God bless her and all the men and women of our military.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

They don't get it.

They seem to think that there is some agenda behind ladies like your daughter signing up. Something beyond love of country.

In their own very mis-guided way they are trying to "protect" her from this "agenda".

[Mudbug]

Nice post! Welcome aboard.

[dandelion]

I'm sorry for my outburst. I apologize for my language, for it probably offended some. I truly appreciate the support you and others have shown - and the other parents I'm sure know how much our babies (for they are still our babies) mean to us, even in uniform. Everything.

latrans, you are still sacrificing today. Let me tell you how much it means to me that you went when called, when other would not go. I am sorry about your friend. The heart does not let go easily, does it?

Those who speak unkindly of the dead do not understand what has been given so they might speak as they do...

If they could only know what jewels, men and women, are offered up daily as sacrifice for freedom; if they could only understand whose blood flowed so they might speak freely here;

If could only comprehend the hearts that were broken so they might live in liberty, they might speak more softly of the dead.

[Redleg Duke]

The death rate for women soldiers is the same as for men...one soldier...one death.

RIP Soldier. Stand your last roll call with honor and pride.

[cardinal4]

Ill bet those fundraiser posts are inserted automatically..

[cardinal4]

May God bless all our servicemen and women, and keep them safe.

Good post!

[Spruce]

Sister your outburst was contained when compared to the words that try to leap out of me when people call my beautiful, proud, brave, honorable, dutiful daughter a lesbian because she feels actions speak louder than words.
You certainly have no need to apologize. May God bless you and your family.

May God comfort the families of the fallen.

[metalcor]

Thank you, my daughter says she is joining the Army for the sake of her 2 year old brother and 1 year old sister. If her abilities mean she could best serve in combat, then so be it. She has the right to serve as her God given abilities dictate. Opinions of others notwithstanding. And I will be proud despite those who would think her service is less worthy. Your language is mild the more I consider some of what I have read here.

[milemark]

As the mother of an Airman - who happens to be female - I find this endless drivel about "lesbians" and "liberals" being tied to our military womento be absolutely horrific. A soldier died in defense of our country, and they can only smear her.

I don't think any of us who object to women serving in the military in combat or combat support which exposes them to significant risk of being captured or killed are trying to smear the female soldiers themselves, but rather some radical feminist activists who promote the women in combat agenda from a position of safety far from the battlefield where they want other's daughters to die to further that agenda. Patriotic young women who wish to serve their country are due the same respect as the men who do the same. My only wish is that they be allowed to serve in support positions away from the actual fighting.

Unfortunatly, I don't recall who said this or where, but someone smarter than me said a while back that biology cannot be legislated and women do not have an equal opportunity to survive doing some of the same jobs as men in the military. Another smart person said that when a building is burning or a ship sinking, would we prefer the women getting out first or the men climbing over them to escape? When there are strange noises in the house at night, would we like to see the husband/father send his wife or daughter downstairs with the baseball bat or gun?

Let the brave patriotic young women who want to join the military serve where they are best able. They may have the heart to match the biggest, strongest male soldiers, but rarely if ever will they have the physical ability of even the smallest, weakest men. It is not fair to them to put them in a dangerous position that they are not as physically able to deal with as a man.

(This opinion does not reflect any disrespect towards any American soldier, male or female, or for anyone who holds any differing view.)

[milemark]

When will this insanity end?

What the war? As soon as we subdue the opposition, get an Iraqi led, democratic form of gov't set up and running and can leave the country without fear of it becoming the next Taliban run Afghanistan.

Not the war, which is a necessary evil, but the use of women in certain military roles which they are unsuited for. Post #34 deals with this as clearly as I am able to.

[milemark]

Texans mourn woman killed in Iraq
By Laura King and Scott Gold
Los Angeles Times


THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/DAVID J. PHILLIP

Agustin Esparza, front, is consoled by nephew Edgar Esparza after learning that his only child had been killed in Iraq.



(Analaura) ESPARZA

TIKRIT, IraqThe mournful notes of a solitary bugler blowing taps rose into the still desert air. In a final roll call, her name -- Analaura Esparza Gutierrez -- was intoned three times, with long pauses between, as if she might answer.

Hundreds of soldiers from the Army's 4th Infantry Division lined up in long, silent rows Friday to pay tribute to Esparza. The 21-year-old private first class was killed Wednesday when a bomb went off almost directly beneath the Humvee she was driving, ripping into her left leg and chest.

A member of a forward support company, she was returning to base after a supply run in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's restive hometown.

A world away, in a tidy middle-class neighborhood outside Houston, where flowers line the sidewalks and every other house seems to have a basketball hoop in the driveway, the cries of a mother who has lost her only child echoed through a cul-de-sac Friday.

"Que paso?" Armandina Esparza screamed again and again. "What happened?"

Her husband Agustin, his red-rimmed eyes peering through bifocals, remembered "a good daughter, a brave daughter. She was proud of what she did, not because she was a woman, but because she was a soldier."

Analaura Esparza, known to her friends as Lissy, was the 315th American soldier to die in Iraq or Kuwait since the start of the war. She was also the fourth female fatality, and her death underscored the lack of distinction between traditional combat and support roles in a war whose front lines are everywhere and nowhere.

That is particularly true in places like Tikrit, where U.S. troops are aggressively hunting insurgents loyal to the deposed Iraqi leader. Throughout the volatile area, every American soldier leaving the gates of highly fortified U.S. compounds is under orders to consider himself -- or herself -- to be on combat footing.


http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/6932356.htm