This morning's
Oregonian has two links to my little home town, Oregon City, and Iraq.
Sadly, both are about soldiers dying.
The first that I noticed referred to the picture that we discussed in another thread yesterday:
Our hearts all went out to BigOkie as he raced to the 7-11, purchasing a copy of the paper to examine the photo more closely to determine if the soldier on the right, helmet off, is his son. He let us know that his wife assured him that it was not.
This morning I opened the Oregonian and found this story inside:
Oregon City sister of slain Marine says body in national news photo was him
The military hasn't confirmed the identification or released details of Staff Sgt. Bill Harrell's death
The phone rang in Cassie Winter's Oregon City home at 9:15 p.m. Thursday.
For days, she had had a sinking feeling about her brother, Marine Staff Sgt. Bill Harrell, but she wasn't ready for this.
Harrell, 30, died after being shot in the neck in Fallujah, Iraq, her uncle called to tell her after talking with military officials.
"No, no. Not Billy," Winter remembered telling her uncle, who raised her and her brother in Orange County, Calif.
Winter said her family is convinced Harrell's body was the one in a dramatic photograph that appeared in newspapers across the country, including The Oregonian, Friday. The photo shows a group of Marines in combat gear kneeling and praying over a comrade who had died in Fallujah.
"My family believes it's him," said Winter, 28. "We know."
Winter said military officials didn't confirm the connection and didn't say what Harrell was doing when he was shot.
Lt. Amy Malugani, Marine spokeswoman at Camp Pendleton in Southern California, couldn't comment on the photo until the U.S. Department of Defense released the Marine's name, which did not happen Friday.
Then, there was this rebuttal to the NYT April 5 Safire commentary in which he refers to Frank Lloyd Wright's floo floo bird "who always flew backward . . . because it didn't give a darn where it was going, but just had to see where it had been," chastising those who would "obsessively review catastrophes past when we should be looking through our windshield at dangers ahead."
Annette Pritchard of Oregon City writes (emphasis added):
I must express my deep offense at William Safire's glib use of silly names in his April 6 column on the war in Iraq, "U.S. looks back when it should look forward."
He begins with a quote from architect Frank Lloyd Wright about "backward looking floo floo birds." I think he would at least look to a historian or political scientist for appropriate support for his views.
Continuing in the silly name vein, he calls the current scrutiny of the Bush administration's choices a "brouhaha." My family does not feel we are raising a "brouhaha" by trying to understand why Army Pfc. William Ramirez, my nephew, did not come home to Oregon this month to celebrate his 20th birthday. William was killed Feb. 11 in Iraq, another victim of a roadside incendiary device.
We have no choice but to look backward each day as we feel his loss. If he had been a murder victim, would Safire begrudge us an investigation and trial? William's mother is forced to live with her grief day and night. But, apparently, that's all water under the bridge to Safire, who wants us to accept William's coffin flag with our chins up and our mouths closed as the Army plays taps.
I resent Safire's insinuation that the ongoing investigations are merely political posturing in an election year by "floo floo birds" and "doves." He needs to remember that real people are suffering and dying, both Americans and Iraqis.
I am sick at the thought of how many more local, hometown connections to deaths in Iraq each of us will come to know in the days ahead.