Pfc. Chance R. Phelps, 19, of Clifton, Colo., died April 9 from hostile fire in Al Anbar Province, Iraq. He was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif.
I Got The News Today (4/12/2004) ...
I will be talking about many parts of the HBO film below, and there may be some spoilers, so if you haven't seen it yet, do not go below the fold. If you haven't seen it, continue and want to know what I'm talking about, here is the trailer.
Taking Chance: A film every American should see
Offering them all honor and respect is our duty as garden-tenders and child-rearers. It has nothing to do with the cynical suits who sent them to their ends.
I'm very grateful for HBO and Lt. Col. Michael Strobl for telling this small story that must stand for 4,247 others. I only wish we could be told all of them.
So, Is No One Going to Diary "Taking Chance?"
GILLETTE, Wyo. — It was just one soldier’s story. Lance Cpl. Chance Phelps, 19, was killed in an ambush outside of Baghdad on Good Friday 2004. Within the next week, his body would be escorted from Iraq, across the Atlantic Ocean and across most of the United States to his hometown of Dubois in northwest Wyoming.
To national audiences, it was one more military casualty.
But like every soldier felled in battle, Chance left behind a world of connections: family, friends and a small Wyoming town devastated by his loss. The man who accompanied his casket from Philadelphia to Dubois, Lt. Col. Michael Strobl, provided a glimpse into that world by journaling the cross-country trip.
A 'Nation' Honoring It's Fallen, Past Due
We as a Nation, for these past 7plus years, have not been allowed to Honor the Returning Soldiers killed while serving this Country in these Two Theaters of Occupations, and because of that few know or even think about the real cost of War, especially Wars of Choice!
"Taking Chance"
For our brave soldiers who fought and died 10,000 miles away from home, Dover Air Force Base mortuary is waiting. And now, as their bodies are no longer hidden away, we honor our fallen.
Bring'em Down Easy, Dover.
An airman stands next to the coffin containing the body of Air Force Staff Sgt. Phillip Myers as it is lowered from a plane upon its return to the U.S. at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware April 5, 2009. Myers, of Hopewell, Virginia, died April 4 near Helmand province, Afghanistan of wounds suffered from an improvised explosive device. For the first time since the Obama administration reversed an 18-year-old ban on news coverage of returning fallen soldiers, the military allowed media to cover to cover the arrival tonight of an airman killed in Afghanistan.
HONORING THE FALLEN: US Military KIA, Iraq & Afghanistan/Pakistan – March 2009