Alone amid the battle-din untouched
Stands out one figure beautiful, serene;
No grime of smoke nor reeking blood hath smutched
The virgin brow of this unconquered queen.
She is the Joy of Courage vanquishing
The unstilled tremors of the fearful heart;
And it is she that bids the poet sing,
And gives to each the strength to bear his part.
Her eyes shall not be dimmed, but as a flame
Shall light the distant ages with its fire,
That men may know the glory of her name,
That purified our souls of fear's desire.
And she doth calm our sorrow, soothe our pain,
And she shall lead us back to peace again.
~ Dyneley Hussey (1917)
Courage
Tonight we honor a courageous American soldier who calmed the sorrows and soothed the pain of many Americans and Iraqis.
Insurgents unleashed their most intense mortar attack to date on the Green Zone on Tuesday, killing 3 people and wounding 18, according to a statement from the American Embassy.
The attack set off a succession of explosions that could be heard on both sides of the Tigris River about 5:30 p.m. Multiple rounds landed inside the Green Zone, seat of the embassy and the Iraqi government. The attack came from northeast of the Green Zone, a predominantly Shiite area.
The three killed were an American soldier, an Iraqi citizen and a foreign citizen.
Source ~ The New York Times
The American soldier killed in this attack was Army Captain Maria I. Ortiz.
From the Department of Defense:
Capt. Maria I. Ortiz, 40, of Bayamon, P.R., died July 10 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered from enemy indirect fire. She was assigned to the Kirk U.S. Army Health Clinic, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.
At the moment of her death, Capt. Ortiz, who had been serving in Iraq since September, was caring for wounded Iraqis at a hospital inside the heavily fortified Green Zone. Her father, Jorge Ortiz, told a reporter from the International Herald-Tribune yesterday that she was not wearing body armor because she "felt safe inside the walls of the central Baghdad district."
She was the first American military nurse to have been killed in Iraq.
Capt. Ortiz was to have been married in December.
"She touched everyone's lives and everything about her was positive," her fiance, Juan Casiano, said from her mother's home in Pennsauken, New Jersey. "She always carried a smile."
Born in Camden, New Jersey, Ortiz grew up in Bayamon, Puerto Rico. She had been assigned to Kirk U.S. Army Health Clinic at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, where she was chief nurse of general medicine.
(snip)
"It was her calling," said Casiano, an Army veteran. "I saw in her what everyone else sees, a beautiful person who brings joy to everyone she touches."
Source ~ International Herald Tribune
Hers is the story of tenacity and sheer determination to serve her country. Twice, U.S. Army Capt. Maria Ortiz had been called to serve in Iraq and twice, (a)t the last minute she was told they didn't need her. So on the third time she volunteered to go right into the eye of the storm... she ended up in Baghdad.
Her fiancé Juan Casiano says, "She wanted to go there. She wanted to make a difference."
(snip)
"She wasn't only a person that went to Iraq because there was a war, she was there with a mission," said her twin sister Maria Luisa Medina.
Medina says her sister was a person of conviction. She had a distinguished military career, serving as chief nurse of general medicine at the Army Clinic at the Aberdeen Proving Ground. She also was assigned to the Walter Reed Medical Center, and spent time in Korea before her deployment to Iraq in September of 2006.
(snip)
A woman of strong Christian faith, she believed going to Iraq to treat American military personnel wounded in the war was a calling from God. "And she always told me that's a privilege that she, as a nurse, can tell wounded soldiers maybe at the last moments of their lives of the possibility of going to Heaven, to receive the opportunity to receive God in their hearts," her sister said.
(snip)
Her twin sister says, "There's no word to express how proud I am for what she did." And her fiancé tells us, "Pain is pain, but knowing the accomplishment and why she did her accomplishments is soothing to the soul."
Source ~ WPVI Channel 6 in Philadelphia
Video
(Capt. Ortiz) was assigned to the Kirk U.S. Army Health Clinic at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.
"She was very popular and very highly thought of," said George Mercer, a spokesman at the Maryland base. "It's just a terrible loss."
(snip)
Ortiz graduated from the University of Puerto Rico in 1990 and joined the Army Reserves in Puerto Rico the next year, said Mercer.
(snip)
At Kirk, Ortiz was the chief nurse of general medicine for 18 months.
Source ~ The (Cherry Hill, N.J.) Courier Post
Those at Kirk remember her brilliant smile and generous spirit.
Everybody at Kirk U.S. Army Health Clinic knew Capt. Maria Ortiz.
She was the head nurse with the 1,000-watt smile and the ability to instantly calm even the most distressed patients at the clinic on Aberdeen Proving Ground, an Army installation in Maryland.
But the 40-year-old Pennsauken native told co-workers last year that while she enjoyed caring for sick soldiers in America, she was volunteering for duty in Iraq because she felt drawn to troops wounded in combat.
(snip)
"If there was a jewel to the clinic, she was the jewel," said Renee Smith, a former co-worker. "But she told us she needed to go to Iraq. She told us: 'I want to save someone's life.'"
(snip)
While in Iraq, Ortiz often stayed in touch with former colleagues by e-mail. Wanda Schuler, a Kirk colleague, said Ortiz arranged for boxes of Christmas decorations to be sent from Maryland to the surgical hospital where she worked.
"She said she wanted to make it as cheery as possible on her ward," Schuler said. "She was really proud of the fact she was over there taking care of our soldiers, trying to make the situation they were going through a little easier."
(snip)
"She shared everything," Schuler said. "She was just one of those people who wanted to touch other people."
(snip)
Ortiz was home from Iraq on a two-week leave at the beginning of the summer and made it a point to stop by the Aberdeen clinic.
"It was so wonderful to see her smile again," Smith said. "We are going to miss her terribly."
Source ~ The Star-Ledger
In Baghdad, Capt. Ortiz was the head nurse for an intensive care unit.
"She knew that it was very dangerous. We both knew that it was dangerous, but that was her conviction was to put herself above others," said her fiancé Juan Casiano.
(snip)
This is what she told her twin sister Maria Louisa Medina: "I'm going over there not as a soldier. In my mind I'm a person that is going to help others. And that was the mind that she always had. The idea is to help others."
At first Ortiz was treating wounded Americans and then injured Iraqi soldiers and civilians.
"She wasn't concerned if she dies or lives. She was concerned to help," added Medina.
Source ~ Fox 29 News
The history of women in the military actually began with the Army nurse corps in 1901. However, even in colonial times nurses were acknowledged as those "citizen soldiers" who met the basic health care needs of soldiers under the most primitive conditions of war. Since that time hundreds of women have served our nation caring for the sick and wounded, comforting the dying, risking their lives, being taken prisoner, and dying in the field.
Source
Army Capt. Maria I. Ortiz was a true American heroine.
She was just 24 when she joined the Army, and served eight years as an enlisted soldier before becoming an officer in 1999 after receiving her nursing degree from the University of Puerto Rico. Five years later, she received a master's degree in quality management from the Massachusetts National Graduate School.
She had also been stationed in Puerto Rico and at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.
In honor of her service to the Army, officials are considering naming at least part of the new Walter Reed Medical Center in honor of Capt. Maria Ortiz and the contribution of nurses in combat zones.
Capt. Ortiz earned a number of commendations, including the Bronze Star.
She is survived by her parents, her fiancé, and four sisters. A memorial service is planned for 3 p.m. Wednesday at the chapel at the Aberdeen Proving Ground. Capt. Ortiz will be buried at Arlington Cemetery will full military honors.
Bless the family, friends, community and fellow soldiers of Captain Maria I. Ortiz.
Grim News: A New York Times reporter was shot and killed (on Friday) while working in Baghdad, just 24 hours after two Reuters staff were killed in the city. Khalid Hassan, 23, was one of the longest-serving local journalists for the New York Times' Baghdad bureau, working as a reporter and translator since 2003. (On Thursday), Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen and driver Saeed Chmagh were killed by gunfire as they covered a clash between insurgents and the US military in eastern Baghdad. (snip) Hassan's death brings the number of journalists killed in Iraq to 110 since the invasion in 2003, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Source ~ The Guardian
To date, 3613 members of the United States military have lost their lives in Iraq. Of these, 84 have been women. The death toll for July is already 37. More than 25,380 men and women have been wounded, and 116 have taken their own lives. All of the fatalities can be seen here. The Department of Defense Press Releases, from which the information at the start of each entry in this diary was drawn, can be seen here. The death toll among Iraqis is unknown, but is at least in the tens of thousands.
Other sites have stories, video, pictures and remembrances, including: Honor the Fallen and Spread the Word: Iraq-Nam, which is maintained by Kossack spread the word IRAQ NAM.
They all had friends and loved ones. Please visit the Iraq Veterans Memorial for a moving look at how a few of their survivors remember them. It will break your heart. If you want to do something more, please visit anysoldier.com, Operation Helmet or Fisher House. If you have frequent flyer miles you would like to donate to hospitalized veterans or their families, please see Fisher House’s Hero Miles program. Finally, if you would like to assist the animal companions of our deployed military, information is available here. Animal companions can provide such solace and comfort.
I Got the News Today is a diary series intended to honor, respect and remind. Click here to see the series, which was begun by i dunno, and is currently maintained by Sandy on Signal, monkeybiz, silvercedes, MsWings, greenies, American Daughter, blue jersey mom, Chacounne, Wee Mama, twilight falling, sheddhead, labwitchy, moneysmith and me, noweasels. These diaries are heartbreaking to write, but, we believe, an important service to those Americans who have died and to our community’s respect for and remembrance of them. If you would like to volunteer, even once a month, please contact Sandy on Signal, monkeybiz, silvercedes or me, noweasels.
We ask, when you read these diaries, that you remember that the families and friends of the courageous soldiers, sailors, Marines, airmen and National Guard profiled in them read them, too. These diaries are for remembrance, whatever our political feelings about the war and occupation.