Tonight we mourn three more US troops lost to war:
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Sergeant Earl D. Werner from Washington
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Specialist Taylor D. Marks from Oregon
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Staff Sergent Michael C. Murphrey from Texas
Sometimes poetry helps to ease the pain of those who grieve. Here is an excerpt from a poem on The Grief Blog:
Through the dark clouds of grief,
Slivers of sunlight filter down.
The pain and fear residing in my heart
Is starting to give way
To the hope of finding joy once again in my life...
My heart will forever be empty from the loss of my precious child.
But the sparkling sunlight spreads light around that hole in my heart.
Gentle healing is beginning; springing anew from the ashes of grief.
- Lana Golembeski
Staff Sergent Michael C. Murphrey
Michael Murphrey was born May 19, 1984. He grew up in Snyder, Texas and graduated from Snyder High School in 2003. Murphrey joined the US Army in October of 2003, served at Fort Bragg, North Carolina and moved to Fort Richardson in April of 2008.
Murphrey was a paratrooper assigned to C Company, 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division at Fort Richardson, Alaska. The 501st Regiment deployed last March. His unit is stationed at Forward Operating Base Sharana.
Staff Sergeant Michael C. Murphrey died September 6th in the Paktika province of Afghanistan, from wounds suffered during an explosion. He had gotten out of his vehicle to conduct a foot patrol and stepped on an explosive device. He was 25 years old.
According to KTUU News site, at least five Fort Richardson paratroopers have died in Afghanistan in the last three weeks:
Sfc. Lance Amsden wrote about the death of his friend Murphrey on the Anchorage Daily News Web site Tuesday.
"I'm sure all of you reading this will just chalk it up to another "issue" or another "soldier we lost at war." Well, the truth is you didn't lose anyhting (sic), his family he left behind did, wife: Ashley, son, Jayden, and daughter, Cameron who is only 9 months old. So as you sit back and sip ur (sic) cofee (sic) or tea, and think about what you're going to do this weekend, take a minute from your day and realize there are astounding men and women over here dying every day, that allow you to do that."
Each man's death is felt hundreds of miles away in a deployment expected to continue until next year.
As of last Sunday, 19 Alaska-based soldiers have died this year. Thirteen of them were killed in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. Eleven soldiers from the 4 th Brigade Combat Team have died in Afghanistan since the unit deployed in February for one year.
Staff Sergeant Murphrey is survived by his wife and two children.
Services for Staff Sergeant Murphrey are pending at Bailey Funeral Home in Clyde, Texas.
Sergeant Earl D. Werner
Earl D. Werner was born in New Plymouth, Idaho in November of 1970. He attended school in New Plymouth, moved to La Center, Washington, and later to Amboy, Washington.
Werner had two years of prior Army Service before enlisting in the Oregon Army National Guard on September 12, 2001. His first deployment was as part of the 2nd Battalion, 162 Infantry in 2004.
On May 10, 2007, Earl married his wife, Casey. He deployed with the 234th Engineer Company in 2007 before transferring to the 41st Special Troops Battalion, 41st Infantry Brigade Combat Team of the Oregon Army National Guard in Portland. He was a truck driver and a heavy equipment operator. For the past two years he worked in Battleground, Washington when he was not serving overseas.
Sergeant Werner was on his third deployment with the Oregon National Guard when insurgents attacked his vehicle on August 28th, with an explosively formed penetrator. The improvised device was powerful enough to send shards of metal through even heavily armored military vehicles. Sergeant Werner, who was 38 years old, died of wounds suffered during the attack in Rashid, Iraq.
The incident also claimed the life of Specialist Taylor D. Marks from Oregon. A Redmond, Washington soldier, Specialist Reid Walch, 24, was seriously wounded by shrapnel from the blast. He was flown to a hospital in Germany for treatment. All three soldiers were with the Oregon Army National Guard unit, which had been in Iraq since June.
According to an article in the Columbian:
Werner is survived by his wife of two years, Casey, and son, Justin, 19. They live near Amboy just inside Cowlitz County.
"This was the second tour of his marriage, so they didn't have a heck of a lot of time together," said Eunice Royer of Vancouver, Casey Werner's grandmother. "It's just so sad for us to see that Casey has to go through this."
"The military was one thing that was very important to his life," said Duane Royer of Vancouver, Werner's father-in-law. "He had such a great caring for the other people he worked with in the National Guard. He felt very responsible for them. That was a driving force of him wanting to do it again. He wanted to take care of people.
During his time with the Oregon National Guard, Sergeant Earl Werner was awarded the Bronze Star, two Army Commendation Medals and the Combat Action Badge. He was posthumously awarded a Purple Heart.
He is survived by his wife Casey and son Charles. The Patriot Guard Riders provided escorts and were at the memorial services for Sergeant Earl D. Werner on September the 5th. They also provided an escort to the Sergeant's final resting place in Lincoln Memorial Park Cemetery in Portland Oregon.
Specialist Taylor D. Marks
Taylor Marks was born in Oregon’s capital city, Salem. He grew up in Monmouth, Oregon and graduated from Central High School in Independence, Oregon in 2008. Independence is Monmouth's sister city. The two small towns border each other. They share a school district and fire department.
While still in high school, Marks volunteered to be in an OPFOR. The OPFOR, short for opposing force, is a group that poses as insurgents for military training weekends. Soldiers use the volunteers to prepare themselves for war.
Taylor Marks joined the Army National Guard to earn money for college and was assigned to the 41st Special Troops Battalion, 41st Infantry Brigade Combat Team of the Oregon Army National Guard. His unit was sent to Iraq for a year's deployment this summer.
Specialist Taylor Marks was one of two Oregon National Guard soldiers killed while on a convoy security mission in Rashid, Iraq. An armor-piercing projectile struck their convoy. Sergeant Earl Werner from Washington, also died in the attack. Theirs were the first deaths in the Oregon Army National Guard's 41st Infantry Brigade Combat Team since the 2,600-member unit deployed to Iraq.
A Redmond, Washington soldier, Specialist Reid Walch, 24, was seriously wounded by shrapnel from the blast. He was flown to a hospital in Germany for treatment. All three soldiers were with the Oregon Army National Guard unit, which had been in Iraq since June.
Specialist Taylor Marks is survived by his father, Morey Marks of Salem; his mother and stepfather, Michelle and Don Mack of Monmouth; and sisters Courtney Marks of Monmouth and Mary Alexandria Mack of Keizer.
The Patriot Guard Riders were at the memorial services held for Specialist Taylor Marks in Oregon on September the 4th. After the service in Independence, a motorcade followed his body to Willamette National Cemetery in Portland where he was buried with full military honors. The Oregon Live site tells of the memorial held for Specialist Marks in Independence:
More than 500 people showed up to mourn Marks on Friday in the same barn where he attended his senior prom.
Gov. Ted Kulongoski, reading from a William Butler Yeats poem, spoke of the time when young men dream, when they fall in love and make plans for their future.
"This was Taylor's time of life," Kulongoski said. "And it should have lasted longer than it did."
But it was a life well-lived. Marks' friends said he loved adventure, that he pursued everything -- from ballroom dancing to rock wall climbing -- with gusto. He was puckish, but compassionate, they said, and he never lost his idealism.
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Helping our troops:
If you wish to assist our military and their families, consider Operation Helmet, or Fisher House. If you have frequent flyer miles, they can be donated to hospitalized veterans or their families. See Fisher House’s Hero Miles program for details. Consider sponsoring a deployed service member at TroopCarePackage.com. Letters or care packages can make a real difference in a military person's life. To assist the animal companions of our deployed military, information is available here. Also, you could visit:
When our veterans come back home, they need jobs. Look at the programs of Hire Heroes USA and Welcome Back Veterans to see if you can help out. The new KINship Project has also been of help our veterans or any Kossacks In Need.
About the IGTNT series:
"I Got the News Today" is a diary series intended to honor, respect, and remind us of the sacrifice of our troops. Click here to see the series, which was begun by i dunno, and which is maintained by Sandy on Signal, monkeybiz, noweasels, greenies, blue jersey mom, Chacounne, twilight falling, joyful, roses, SisTwo, SpamNunn, a girl in MI, JeNoCo, Mediaprof, rb137, and TrueBlueMajority. These diaries are heartbreaking to write, but are an important service to those Americans who have died and show our community’s respect for them.
Fallen service members whose names have been released by the Department of Defense will usually be diaried two days after the official announcement on the DoD website. This allows the IGTNT team to cover each person more fully, but still in a timely manner
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Please bear in mind that these diaries are read by friends and family of the service members mentioned here. May all of our remembrances be full of compassion rather than politics.