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The following is Marine Lieutenant Colonel Strobl's account of escorting the remains of Lance Corporal Chance Phelps. It's a long and beautifully written and it deserves to be read in it's entirety. It's about Valor, Honor and Respect. Thanks to Jarhead Dad for sending it to me. 23 Apr 04 – The enclosed article was written by LtCol M.R. Strobl USMC who is assigned to MCCDC Quantico, VA and served as the officer who escorted the remains of PFC C. Phelps USMC from Dover AFB, DE to his home. PFC Phelps was assigned to 3d Bn, 11th Marines – an...

"Taking Chance" airs tomorrow at 8PM on HBO. Taking Chance is based on a true story about a Marine officer who escorts the body of a dead Marine home from Iraq. Michael Medved has given it 4 stars (out of 4) and called it the first good movie about the Iraq war. Army casualty assistance officers have also praised the movie.

Chance Phelps was wearing his Saint Christopher medal when he was killed on Good Friday. Eight days later, I handed the medallion to his mother. I didn’t know Chance before he died. Today, I miss him. Over a year ago, I volunteered to escort the remains of Marines killed in Iraq should the need arise. The military provides a uniformed escort for all casualties to ensure they are delivered safely to the next of kin and are treated with dignity and respect along the way.

Death, in the end, hovers over Frank Schaeffer's "Voices From the Front: Letters Home From America's Military Family." This is not a depressing book. Not at all. The letters are almost invariably uplifting, full of simple nobility and a certain kind of life-sustaining joy. But "Voices" is a book about war, and that inevitably means death -- killing the enemy, watching your countrymen being killed and contemplating the ever-present possibility of your own death. Love letters, camp-life updates, care-package requests, notes of appreciation or longing -- the business of killing or being killed adds meaning to every communication in the...

Taking Chance Chance Phelps was wearing his Saint Christopher medal when he was killed on Good Friday. Eight days later, I handed the medallion to his mother. I didn't know Chance before he died. Today, I miss him. Over a year ago, I volunteered to escort the remains of Marines killed in Iraq should the need arise. The military provides a uniformed escort for all casualties to ensure they are delivered safely to the next of kin and are treated with dignity and respect along the way. Thankfully, I hadn't been called on to be an escort since Operation...

Today I Miss HimDate: Apr 22, 2004 - 09:34 AM U.S.M.C. - Taking Chance LtCol Strobl Chance Phelps was wearing his Saint Christopher medal when he was killed on Good Friday. Eight days later, I handed the medallion to his mother. I didn't know Chance before he died. Today, I miss him. Over a year ago, I volunteered to escort the remains of Marines killed in Iraq should the need arise. The military provides a uniformed escort for all casualties to ensure they are delivered safely to the next of kin and are treated with dignity and respect along...

<p>The cemetery in Dubois is on a hill, so it was possible to see the length of the procession following the horse-drawn carriage that took Marine Chance Phelps to his grave on Saturday.</p> <p>Pfc. Phelps was shot and killed west of Baghdad, Iraq, when the convoy he was protecting was ambushed on Good Friday. He was 19 and less than a year out of high school when he became the seventh member of the armed services with connections to Wyoming to have died in Iraq.</p>

The cemetery in Dubois is on a hill, so it was possible to see the length of the procession following the horse-drawn carriage that took Marine Chance Phelps to his grave on Saturday. Pfc. Phelps was shot and killed west of Baghdad, Iraq, when the convoy he was protecting was ambushed on Good Friday. He was 19 and less than a year out of high school when he became the seventh member of the armed services with connections to Wyoming to have died in Iraq. In his eulogy, Rear Admiral Richard Porterfield, Director of Naval Intelligence, said Phelps' "name...