Almost five years ago, my small town lost one of it's sons in Iraq. Army Staff Sgt. Kevin C. Kimmerly died when an RPG hit his vehicle near Baghdad. He was 31 years old and left behind a wife and young son (in addition to many relatives and friends).
At the time, I wasn't yet registered here, but I diaried about his funeral on another forum, and you canread it here (if you wish).
Last Thursday, we lost another, this time in Afghanistan.
Let me tell you a bit about my small town. Johnsburg, NY is nestled in the southern Adirondacks. There are about 2400 full time residents scattered among 7 hamlets (including North Creek), covering an area of over 200 square miles. (Note that in the above linked diary, it mentions that Kevin Kimmerly graduated in a class of just 20 students.) While republicans outnumber Democrats by about 2-1, we are otherwise a fairly progressive community.
And while everybody doesn't exactly know everybody else, we operate at about 2 degrees of separation.
Just prior to the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, many of us got together and held a peace-oriented get together where we sang songs, made peace cranes and prayer flags, and just generally shared fellowship with like-minded neighbors who thought that the proper response to 9/11 was not bombing an third world country back to a pre-paleolithic state.
For months prior to the invasion of Iraq, many of us stood vigil week after week (through bitter cold winter days) at what passes for our town square, and we received far more support than condemnation.
Kevin Kimmerly's death was a sad shock to our town, and helped us all understand the madness that was and is Bush's idiotic war(s).
The years have gone by and in 2006 our town voted for Hillary Clinton, Eliot Spitzer, and Kirsten Gillibrand. We also have our first Democratic Town Board Member in decades (that would be me...). Three out of five board members are sporting Obama bumper stickers on their cars. The chairman of the town's republican committee has resigned in order to actively support Obama for president.
In short, many eyes have been opened and the veil of republican bullshit has slowly lifted. We made our sacrifice. We learned the true cost of this madness (and I don't differentiate between Iraq and Afghanistan here), and we are, by and large, looking forward to a change in Washington that will lead us out of the wilderness.
And then we learned that last Thursday that a former resident of our town, whose former wife and 20 year old daughter (whose birthday is today) still live here, was killed by an IED, RPG, and small arms fire incident in Afghanistan.
From the Albany Times Union:
"In an e-mail from Afghanistan, National Guard Spc. Mark C. Palmateer confided to his daughter, Stephanie, that he was about to embark on a dangerous convoy mission to Kabul.
"He just kept telling her things were getting real bad over there," Palmateer's ex-wife, Kimberly Smith, said Monday from North Creek, Warren County.
As Smith spoke, Stephanie Palmateer, who turns 20 today, was driving from North Creek to the Poughkeepsie area to grieve her father's death with relatives.
Mark Palmateer, 38, of Wappingers Falls, Dutchess County, was one of three National Guardsmen killed Thursday by an improvised explosive device, small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades in eastern Afghanistan."
So, once again, our town will grieve. We will comfort Kim and Stephanie as best we can. And many of us will continue to do our best to make sure that this nightmare ends. For ourselves, our nation, and the poor souls who are the tragic victims of our "liberation".
So, in parting, I'd just like to request that all of the folks on this site who get riled up at the OMG! Look at what Obama said/did indignity of the day. Those who threaten to not send their donations. Those who swear that they will either not vote or will vote for someone other than Obama. Etc.
I'd just like to request that they consider that there is only one real chance to stop this madness and that chance is named Barack Obama.
Please. So no one else has to go through this.
"Sitting to the right of his mother Inge and wearing his father’s medals and pins, 9-year-old Christopher Kimmerly, his bravery briefly giving way to emotion, observes as his father, Army Staff Sgt. Kevin C. Kimmerly, is laid to rest Wednesday afternoon at Bates Cemetery in Johnsburg."(Glens Falls, NY Post Star 9/25/03)