Serving The Country That Won't Allow Your Wife To Live In

Struggling Iraq vet may lose his anchor

His wife, brought here illegally at age 6, is about to be deported. 'She's my everything,' her husband says.

The nightmares still plague him. The terrifying mortar attacks. The loss of an Albanian soldier and ally, mutilated by shrapnel. The Iraqi children, bloodied and battered, lined up for medical care at the U.S. base at Mosul.

Two years after returning from his service in Iraq, U.S. Army Spc. Jack Barrios, 26, is fighting sleeplessness, sudden angry outbursts, aversion to emotional intimacy and other fallout from his post-traumatic stress disorder.

But as he undergoes counseling and swallows anti-depressants, the soldier is fighting an even bigger battle: to keep his family from collapsing as his wife, an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, faces deportation...>>>Rest Found Here

Their story and the story of another Soldiers Wife and Son, this Soldier Died while serving his Country!!

Afghanistan: Soldier Killed, CBS Reporter Injured

August 28, 2009



CBS News radio correspondent Cami McCormick was injured while on assignment in Afghanistan, as Harry Smith reports. McCormick injured in an IED blast while traveling with U.S. soldiers.

Soldier killed, CBS reporter wounded in bombing

KABUL — A CBS Radio News correspondent was being treated Saturday at Bagram Air Base after being seriously wounded by a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan that also killed a U.S. service member, officials said.

The U.S. troop death made August the deadliest month of the nearly eight-year war for American forces. The intensified fighting has raised the risk to journalists embedded with the military............

Inspired by Fallen Son,

Father Completes Book on Iraq

Staff Sgt. Darrell "Skip" Griffin Jr. wanted to give Americans a close-up view of his two tours of duty in Iraq, so they could see the blood and grit in the aftermath of an attack on a convoy, and feel his anxiety in watching the lives of ordinary Iraqis fall part in the crossfire between sectarian killers and the soldiers who hunted them.

His plans to write a book with his father, Darrell Griffin Sr., were cut short by a sniper's bullet in Baghdad on March 21, 2007..............

Their Book: "Last Journey: A Father and Son in Wartime"

Publisher Comments:

The harrowing true story of a father and his son, a staff sergeant killed in Iraq: a tribute to the "great conversation" they shared and the book they had intended to complete together.

Staff Sergeant Darrell "Skip" Griffin, Jr., was killed in action on March 21, 2007, during his second tour of duty in Iraq. He had been awarded the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star with Valor for dragging a comrade to safety through enemy gunfire. He was in the middle of collaborating with his father on a book compiled from their correspondence about life and death and the great works of Western civilization. Tentatively titled The Great Conversation, it was an attempt to describe and make sense of the destruction he had seen in Iraq. His father, Darrell Griffin, Sr., was going to help him finish writing it that summer, after his scheduled homecoming.

In the aftermath of Skip's death, Darrell, Sr., took it upon himself to finish the book. He traveled to Iraq, experiencing the war firsthand and meeting his son's comrades. Driven by a conviction that Americans do not know enough about the war they have been fighting for the past six years, The Great Conversation is a telling account of everyday life for soldiers in Iraq. It is a raw glimpse of the conflict, but also an intimate portrait of a lost son, a meditation on the war, and finally a tribute to the lively philosophical debates the Griffins used to share. Included is email correspondence with Skip throughout his time in the military as well as original photographs from the front lines that chronicle the violence of combat and its toll on society. Passionate and inspiring, The Great Conversation serves as a reminder of the human cost of war.

This is, and always has been, a Non Issue

Those who Serve the Country Serve the Whole Country and Thus Should Be Given the 'Honor' and 'Respect' Due Them when Returned to this soil after Dying during that Service!!

There are some groups of people who welcome home the returning soldiers in airports and other transportation points.

We organize rallies for the families and communities on the return of locally based Units of the Reserves, National Guard, and on Army and Marine bases.

We have returning men and women soldiers surprising their young children, and school classmates, and we readily show these surprise homecomings while we watch them with the same tears of joy as the kids.

Some will give a "Welcome Home" and a Handshake when meeting soldiers wherever.

Yet we seem to think that there is supposed to be some sort of Debate about 'Honoring with Due Respect' those who return to this country in Flag Drapped Coffins when they are killed Serving The Whole Country, as their Coffins are brought in Quietly and In The Dark of our Media and Citizens. Than the Country, far in the future, Debates wether Memorials should be built and what they should look like.

We should Honor our Fallen as to their Total Sacrifice of their Service, however right or wrong the policies causing their deaths!

Coffins’ Arrival From War Becomes an Issue Again

Those two aspects of the review may well yield opposing perspectives. Britain and Canada, two important allies in the war in Afghanistan, allow far more news media access to the repatriation process — the return of a fallen soldier to his or her country — than does the United States.

The new review has revived an old debate. Supporters of the ban say it protects families’ privacy and keeps the deaths from becoming politicized; critics say the government is trying to sanitize the wars and reduce public awareness of their human cost.

As Of February 22nd, 2009, There Are 91 Pages w/5 'Silent Honor Rolls' Each, Number Of KIA's Varies With Each 'Silent Honor Roll';
Many now have numbers in the teens and twenties
In Honor - In Memory


This Is Not nor Should Be Debatable, it Should Be Policy!!

What for? {Devastating News from Mia Farrow}

On the 26th of this month, Memorial Day, at 12:21 AM, Mia Farrow posted the following on her blog. The 'What For?' is her subject title, and one many of us have been asking for these 5plus years.

We have just learned that my nephew, Jason Deane, died in Iraq yesterday

His mother is my sister, Tisa Farrow. His dad is Terry Deane.

Jason loved and was loved by his parents, his sister, Bridget, his brother, Mitchell, his wife Judi and their three small children. He was my God-son and much loved by all of us in this large family.

He also loved his country and he was proud to serve.

But I honestly don't know why Jason died. There was never any evidence of weapons of mass destruction. That was a lie. So people speculate -- was it the oil? Or the old grudges of an old man -- Cheney and his Halliburton? Or the unfinished business of the father -- some haunting of the son? Saddam was bad -- but by then a sleeping dog. Not making threats. The world is full of brutal leaders, some are worse than Saddam Hussein.

This war is as incomprehensible as it is unacceptable. In a cloud of confusion politicians, generals and ordinery people have come to see that it is a disaster. Exit plans are being discussed but Iraqi citizens and young Americans like our Jason are being killed.

For four years my sister has lived in fear of this day.

She is a nurse and was working at the hospital when the two uniformed men came to her home. Jason's sister, Bridget opened the door. They went to the hospital to give Tisa the most terrible news a mother could hear.

I hope I never see George W Bush.

I could not shake his hand. He and his cabal have killed my beautiful nephew just as surely as if they had shot him. May God, if there is one, forgive them. I cannot.

Today Tisa and Terry, Bridget and Mitchell, Judi, and the three little ones - have been given a life sentence of grief.

How many more must die before this atrocity is stopped?

Three hours later she posts a photo site link of her nephews Infantry Division with the following

A photo site run by his infantry division.
Jaspn's father Terry said "Jason loved the army and would want to be remembered as a good soldier."
certainly he was that, and much, much more.

I ask the same question as Mia:

How many more must die before this atrocity is stopped?

Not only the Atrocity of Iraq, as well as that which has quickly turned into, Afganistan, but the Atrocities occurring as these military personal come home after Multiple Tours and once again are pushed aside, in their care and by a Nation more intent on a presidential campaign than the Reality of what this country will be facing!

This country that now Accepts Torture, Accepts the Lies that led to the Slaughter of Tens of Thousands of it's own and innocents of Iraq and Afganistan, thinking zero about the reason for going into Afganistan in the first place, Accepts the Blank Checks of Corporate War Profitteers, Accepts the Blank Check of a Paid Mercenary Army, Accepts the Destruction of Law and the Constitution!!

I Light A Candle with Sadness but Memory of another Fallen Brother

For Mia's Nephew, Jason and his Family, RIP Brother RIP, and in Memory of your Fallen Brothers and Sisters and Mine as well!

And I Ask The Question

Asked So Long Ago by a Gold Star Mother in Crawford Texas

Still Unanswered!!

And I would ask, Why was Mia's Nephew Serving this Country but not the sons and daughters of those who sent them into these Occupations, especially the New Husband of a certain First Daughter?

Who's 'Patriotic'?

Who Serves the 'National Defense' of this Country?

UPDATE:

PATRICK V. FARROW

Lies, arrogance killed my nephew

Because of the arrogant, corrupt lies of George W. Bush and his neocon handlers my nephew is dead, and I am mad as hell.

3901 with Today and Tomorrow till Month Ends

Sadly since posting this on the 24th, for Christmas Eve, there have been four more confirmed Deaths of American Military Personal in Iraq!

I was hoping that I wouldn't find a need to Update that original post after the month of December ends!

But I will with a heavy heart!

U.S. Deaths Confirmed By The DoD: 3901
Reported U.S. Deaths Pending DoD Confirmation: 0
Total 3901
DoD Confirmation List
Latest Coalition Fatality: Dec 26, 2007

This found at Huffington Post

December 29, 2007 07:34 PM EST

As of Saturday, Dec. 29, 2007, at least 3,901 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes eight military civilians. At least 3,175 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.

The AP count is three higher than the Defense Department's tally, last updated Friday at 10 a.m. EST.

The British military has reported 174 deaths; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 21; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, seven; El Salvador, five; Slovakia, four; Latvia, three; Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand, Romania, two each; and Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, South Korea, one death each.

In Honor:

1st Lt. Jeremy E. Ray 26 1st Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment Houston, Texas Died of wounds suffered when an enemy attacked using a homemade bomb in Kanaan, Iraq, on December 20, 2007

Pfc. George J. Howell 24 1st Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Infantry Division Salinas, California Died of wounds suffered when his vehicle was attacked by a homemade bomb in Riyadh, Iraq, on December 21, 2007

Sgt. Bryan J. Tutten 33 1st Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division St. Augustine, Florida Died of wounds suffered when a homemade bomb exploded near his position during combat operations in Balad, Iraq, on December 25, 2007

Sgt. Peter C. Neesley 28 3rd Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan Died of an undetermined cause in a non-combat environment in Baghdad, Iraq, on December 25, 2007. The circumstances surrounding his death are under investigation.

I will add the above names to the original after the end of the month, and I Hope and Pray there will be No More To Add in these last two days, and even fewer in the coming months of the New Year!