The young man we honor tonight served with a group of the Screaming Eagles (members of the 101st Airborne) with a proud past. Specialist Thomas A. Moffitt was a Currahee. His unit, the 506th, was featured in the mini-series "Band of Brothers."
There are, also, some from the past whom we will think of tonight. Men who have been missing for many years, whose remains have finally been identified, and returned to their relatives for burial at home.
While the IGTNT diaries usually remember the lives of recent casualties, there is occasionally time to recognize others of our fallen. Tonight some of our recently identified MIAs are listed too. For a more complete accounting, sure to visit Jimstaro's diary series, Honoring the Fallen, which remembers all our fallen, including coalition deaths, MIA remains found, tragic civilian casulties and the sad deaths due to PTSD.
Specialist Thomas A. Moffitt
Thomas A. Moffitt was from Wichita, Kansas and was a 2008 graduate of Northwest High School. He enlisted in the US Army in February of 2009, shortly after graduation.
There are some nice pictures of Thomas available on www.kansascity.com. They give evidence of the fact that Moffitt loved the outdoors. According to the MSNBC News site:
Moffitt was an avid outdoorsman who loved fishing, hunting and 4-wheeling. His family says those interests led him to joining the Army last year.
"It was almost hard to keep him in one place," said George Diepenbrock, Moffitt's cousin. "He always wanted to do something, always wanted to go fishing, always wanted to go hunting, always wanted to drive something somewhere."
Now, a young man known for being full of life won't be coming back home after he fell to enemy fire in Afghanistan on Saturday.
Moffitt was an Infantryman assigned to Delta Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), which is based at Fort Campbell in Kentucky. He had served in South Korea and arrived at Fort Campbell in June 2010.
His regiment got its nickname, "Currahee", after Currahee Mountain which was located inside the boundaries of Camp Toccoa, Georgia where the unit formed in 1942. The name comes from a Cherokee word, which is translated to mean "Stand Alone," which became the unit's motto. A recent message from MG John F. Campbell, Commander, 101st Airborne Division and Regional Command-East, for the 506th Infantry website mentions the Currahees:
The Currahees are now in charge of their battlespace, the Paktika Province. They assumed their battlespace on 8 September. They are the final piece of the "surge", I have mentioned continuity in previous updates, and how we are trying to maintain as much continuity with units as we can, and the Currahees are a prime example. 1-506 is back in Sharana . . . where they were on their last deployment, and 2-506 is back at FOB Orgun-E . . . also where they were before. About 60% of the battalions were on the last deployment, and have rekindled relationships with Afghans they met on the last deployment.
The Currahees complete the deployment of Force Package 3, the last of President Obama's surge announced earlier this year. We now have the 101st Division Headquarters, Bastogne (1BCT, 101st), Strike (2BCT, 101st), Rakkasan (3BCT, 101st), Currahee (4BCT, 101st), and Destiny (101st CAB) in Afghanistan. The Sustainment Brigade Headquarters will join us here later this fall, and 159th CAB will replace the 101st CAB in the JAN/FEB timeframe. This makes the first time that an entire US Division is deployed to Afghanistan.
Specialist Moffitt began a deployment to the southeastern part of Afghanistan this summer. He was in the Paktika province, one of the most remote provinces in Afghanistan. He was scheduled to come home on leave next month.
Specialist Thomas Adam Moffitt died of a gunshot wound on October 24th. His unit was attacked by insurgents with small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades in the Sarobi District of the Paktika province of Afghanistan. He was 21 years old.
Services for Specialist Thomas A. Moffitt will be held Saturday at Central Community Church in Wichita, Kansas. The Patriot Guard Riders will be there. Moffitt will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery at a later date. Fort Campbell holds a monthly Eagle Remembrance Ceremony to honor fallen Screaming Eagles (members of the 101st Airborne). The next ceremony will honor Specialist Moffitt, among the fallen, and will be held on November 10th.
Moffitt is the eighth Fort Campbell soldier to be killed this month in Afghanistan, where heavy fighting continues. He is survived by his parents, John and Brenda Moffitt, and an older brother, Jake.
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Of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II, more than 400,000 died. At the end of the war, the U.S. government was unable to recover and identify approximately 79,000 Americans. More than 74,000 are unaccounted-for from the conflict.
Since late 1973, the remains of 938 Americans killed in the Vietnam War have been accounted for and returned to their families with 1,708 service members still missing.
Among other forensic identification tools and circumstantial evidence, scientists from JPAC and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory used mitochondrial DNA -- to match relatives of the missing men. When available, they used dental comparisons in the identification of the remains.
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Two men missing from World War II, were returned to their relatives for burial:
- Army Pfc. Lawrence N. Harris from Elkins, W.V. was buried on Oct. 8 in Clarksburg, W.V.
- Army Cpl. Judge C. Hellums from Paris, Miss.was buried on Oct. 9 in Randolph, Miss.
In late September 1944, their unit, the 773rd Tank Battalion, was clearing German forces out of the Parroy Forest near Lunéville. On Oct. 9, 1944, in the final battle for control of the region, Hellums, Harris and three other soldiers were attacked by enemy fire in their M-10 Tank Destroyer. Harris and Hellums were reported to have been killed, and evidence at the time indicated the remains of the men had been destroyed in the attack and were neither recovered nor buried near the location.
In 2003, a French citizen exploring the Parroy Forest discovered human remains and an identification bracelet engraved with Hellums’ name. The information was eventually sent to the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC). In April 2006, the man turned over the items to a JPAC team working in Europe.
Historians at DPMO and JPAC continued their research on the burials at the Ardennes Cemetery, and drew a correlation to those unknowns that had been removed from the 1944 battle site. In early 2008, JPAC disinterred these remains and began their forensic review.
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Missing from the Vietnam War, and returned to relatives for burial:
- Army Staff Sgt. Robert S. Griffith from Hapeville, Ga. was buried on Oct. 23 in Fairburn, Ga.
- Army Staff Sgt. Melvin C. Dye from Carleton, Mich. could not be individually identified and will be buried at a later date.
- Sgt. 1st Class Douglas J. Glover from Cortland, N.Y. could not be individually identified and will be buried at a later date.
The men were aboard a UH-1H Iroquois helicopter on Feb. 19, 1968, when it was shot down by enemy fire in Laos. They were involved in an attempt to extract a long-range reconnaissance patrol in the mountains of Attapu Province. Three other American service members survived the crash and were rescued, but three Vietnamese Montagnards did not survive.
In 1995, a joint U.S.-Lao People’s Democratic Republic team traveled to the recorded grid coordinates for the crash site but found no evidence of a helicopter crash. The team then surveyed a second location in the area where they found helicopter wreckage and human remains. In 2006, a follow-on team was not able to resurvey the same site due to severe overgrowth and time constraints. Another team excavated the location in late 2007 recovering human remains, wreckage and military-related equipment.
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Also missing from World War II, and returned to relatives for burial:
- Army Staff Sgt. John R. Simonetti from Heights, N.Y. was buried on Oct. 25 in Arlington National Cemetery.
Following the Normandy invasion, allied troops began the deadly task of engaging regrouped German forces in the pastures, hedgerows and villages of France. On June 16, 1944, Simonetti was among the advancing infantrymen of the 9th Infantry Regiment of the 2nd Infantry Division. The soldiers were met with heavy automatic weapons and mortar fire and were forced to stop and take cover before they reached the French town of St. Germain-d’Elle.
During the battle, the Americans sustained heavy losses, including Simonetti. Two members of his unit later gave conflicting information on the location and disposition of his remains. In the first account, the witness stated his body could not be recovered due to enemy activity, and the second said his body was evacuated to the battalion aid station. Two post-war investigations failed to recover his remains and he was declared non-recoverable by a military review board in 1950.
In May 2009, a French construction crew uncovered human remains and military equipment—including Simonetti’s identifications tags—when excavating a site in St. Germain-d’Elle. French police turned over the remains and artifacts to U.S. officials for analysis.
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Two men missing from World War II, were returned to their relatives for burial:
- Army Air Forces Staff Sergeant Claude A. Ray from 24, Coffeyville, Kansas was buried in Fallbrook, California on October 27th.
- Army Air Forces Staff Sergeant Claude G. Tyler from Landover, Maryland was buried in Arlington National Cemetery on October 27th.
These two airmen, along with 10 other crew members, were ordered to carry out a reconnaissance mission in their B-24D Liberator, taking off from an airfield near Port Moresby, New Guinea, on Oct. 27, 1943. Allied plans were being formulated to mount an attack on the Japanese redoubt at Rabaul, New Britain. American strategists considered it critical to take Rabaul in order to support the eventual invasion of the Philippines.
The crew’s assigned area of reconnaissance was the nearby shipping lanes in the Bismarck Sea. But during their mission, they were radioed to land at a friendly air strip nearby due to poor weather conditions. The last radio transmission from the crew did not indicate their location, and searchers that day and the following weeks were unable to locate the aircraft in spite of multiple searches over land and sea areas.
In August 2003 a team from the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) received information on a crash site from a citizen in Papua New Guinea while they were investigating another case. He also turned over an identification card from one of the crew members and reported that there were possible human remains at the site of the crash. Twice in 2004 other JPAC teams attempted to visit the site but were unable to do so due to poor weather and hazardous conditions at the helicopter landing site. Another team was able to successfully excavate the site from January to March 2007 where they found several identification tags from the B-24D crew as well as human remains.
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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 US troops. Click here to see the series, which was begun by i dunno, and which is maintained by Sandy on Signal, monkeybiz, noweasels, blue jersey mom, Chacounne, twilight falling, joyful, roses, SisTwo, SpamNunn, a girl in MI, JeNoCo, Mediaprof, TrueBlueMajority, JanosNation, Proud Mom and Grandma, Ministry of Truth, CalNM, Wide Awake in Kentucky, Ms Wings, maggiejean, racheltracks, JaxDem, and kestrel9000. These diaries are heartbreaking to write, but are an important service to those who have died, and show our community’s respect for them.
Fallen service members whose names have been released by the US Department of Defense will usually be diarized 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.