Grief Daily Witness (photo) Day 218

13 Comments

1. 

   RubDMC on January 6, 2006 at 10:52 pm

   

   Click on the candle to copy the image into your own comment (you can leave it on my server), and/or rate this one – not for mojo, but to leave a small mark after taking this moment.

   ” I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.”
   from Dirge Without Music
   by Edna St. Vincent Millay

2. 

   DuctapeFatwa on January 6, 2006 at 11:00 pm

   An unidentified male Iraqi detainee died yesterday while being transferred from Ar Rutbah to Camp Korean Village Jan 4. The man was detained after a coordinated series of raids, along with 22 other men suspected of insurgent activities.

   When the convoy arrived at the detention facility, Marines found the man unresponsive. Medical personnel were immediately summoned and rendered aid. However, the man did not respond to treatment and was pronounced dead.

   The cause and circumstances surrounding his death are under investigation.

   nerdified link

3. 

   alohaleezy on January 6, 2006 at 11:10 pm

   May they all rest in peace and may the investigators shut this mine down. It was laden with violations. Wonder who was greasing the palms so theywouldn’t be shut down in the first place?

4. 

   dada on January 6, 2006 at 11:55 pm

   

   Peace

5. 

   shermanesqe on January 7, 2006 at 12:01 am

   

6. 

   jimstaro on January 7, 2006 at 4:52 am

   
   Light A Candle For
   Peace, Tolerance, Understanding
   and For The Children – Innocence Lost!

   
   Cover of Brian Turner’s book of Iraqi war poems.

   {Click on Links or Graphic to visit site to hear the short interview on NPR’s Morning Edition, 1-06-06, talking about his book of Iraq War Poetry and reading a few entry’s posted below}

   NPR Morning Edition, January 6, 2006 · Brian Turner is a soldier-poet who served for seven years in the U.S. Army. Beginning in November 2003, he was an infantry team leader in Iraq with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division.

   His book, ‘Here, Bullet’, reflects his war-time experiences in graceful and unflinching poetry. Turner tells Steve Inskeep about the military tradition in his family and why he joined the Army when he was almost 30. He reads selected poems from his collection and reflects on what inspired them. One poem, Eulogy, was written to memorialize a soldier in his platoon who took his own life

   Eulogy
   It happens on a Monday, at 11:20 A.M.,
   as tower guards eat sandwiches
   and seagulls drift by on the Tigris River.
   Prisoners tilt their heads to the west
   though burlap sacks and duct tape blind them.
   The sound reverberates down concertina coils
   the way piano wire thrums when given slack.
   And it happens like this, on a blue day of sun,
   when Private Miller pulls the trigger
   to take brass and fire into his mouth:
   the sound lifts the birds up off the water,
   a mongoose pauses under the orange trees,
   and nothing can stop it now, no matter what
   blur of motion surrounds him, no matter what voices
   crackle over the radio in static confusion,
   because if only for this moment the earth is stilled,
   and Private Miller has found what low hush there is
   down in the eucalyptus shade, there by the river.

   PFC B. Miller
   (1980-March 22, 2004)

   Ashbah
   Brian Turner reads “Ashbah”

   The ghosts of American soldiers
   wander the streets of Balad by night,
   unsure of their way home, exhausted,
   the desert wind blowing trash
   down the narrow alleys as a voice
   sounds from the minaret, a soulfull call
   reminding them how alone they are,
   how lost. And the Iraqi dead,
   they watch in silence from rooftops
   as date palms line the shore in silhouette,
   leaning toward Mecca when the dawn wind blows.

   Najaf 1820
   Brian Turner reads “Najaf 1820”

   Camel caravans transport the dead
   from Persia and beyond, their bodies dried
   and wrapped in carpets, their dying wishes
   to be buried near Ali,
                                where the first camel
   dragged Ali’s body across the desert
   tied to the fate of its exhaustion.
   Najaf is where the dead naturally go,
   where the gates of Paradise open before them
   in unbanded light, the blood washed clean
   from their bodies.
                             It is November,
   the clouds made of gunpowder and rain,
   the earth pregnant with the dead;
   cemetary mounds stretching row by row
   with room enough yet for what the years
   will bring: the gravediggers need only dig,
   shovel by shovel.

   ^^^^^^^^
   If interested you can purchase Brian’s Book of Poetry HERE

7. 

   jimstaro on January 7, 2006 at 5:03 am

   In Memory!

   
   Light A Candle For
   Peace, Tolerance, Understanding
   and For The Children – Innocence Lost!

   My Lai hero Hugh Thompson Jr. dies at 62

   
   Former helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson, Jr., left, and his gunner Lawrance Colburn leave the My Lai Memorial, in Quang Ngai, Vietnam, March 15, 1998 after a reunion with two female villagers they rescued during the massacre. Hugh Thompson Jr., a former U.S. Army helicopter pilot honored for rescuing Vietnamese civilians from being killed by fellow GIs during the My Lai massacre, died early Friday, Jan. 6, 2006. He was 62. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit, File)

   Author Seymour Hersh won the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for his expose of the massacre in 1969 while working as a freelance journalist. The massacre became one of the pivotal events as opposition to the war was growing in the United States.

   Hersh called Thompson “one of the good guys.”

   “You can’t imagine what courage it took to do what he did,” Hersh said.

   Although Thompson’s story was a significant part of Hersh’s reports, and Thompson testified before Congress, his role in ending My Lai wasn’t widely known until the late 1980s, when David Egan, a professor emeritus at Clemson University, saw an interview in a documentary and launched a letter-writing campaign that eventually led to the awarding of the medals in 1998.

   “He was the guy who by his heroic actions gave a morality and dignity to the American military effort,” Tulane history professor Douglas Brinkley said.

   For years Thompson suffered snubs and worse from those who considered him unpatriotic. He recalled a congressman angrily saying that Thompson himself was the only serviceman who should be punished because of My Lai.

   “There are so many people today walking around alive because of him, not only in Vietnam, but people who kept their units under control under other circumstances because they had heard his story. We may never know just how many lives he saved.”

   Just A Few Links…
   Of Who Hugh was, along with his Crew!

   Heroes: Hugh Thompson: Reviled, then honored, for his actions at …

   Heroes of My Lai

   CNN – Cold War: Chat with Hugh Thompson

   Thompson

   60min. CBS News | An American Hero | May 9, 2004 18:52:03

   He Personified what Most Military Personal Truly Are, no matter what you hear or see!

   • 

     RubDMC on January 7, 2006 at 5:52 am

     We honor Hugh Thompson.

   • 

     supersoling on January 7, 2006 at 6:56 am

     

   • 

     jimstaro on January 7, 2006 at 7:32 am

     A GENUINE Hero Has Died
     by aybayb [Subscribe]
     Sat Jan 07, 2006 at 01:14:51 AM EST

     It’s on the Passing of ‘Hugh Thompson’ A True American, and What We Should All Be, ‘Humane’!!!

     While it’s a Simple Diary Posting, at the Daily KOS, the Many Links and Comments Posted should be Read and Visited about this Simple Man, and Chopper Crew, who Acted out of Courage and Humanity in the Inhumanity of Conflict!

     As stated in an Article yesterday on his passing:
     “There are so many people today walking around alive because of him, not only in Vietnam, but people who kept their units under control under other circumstances because they had heard his story. We may never know just how many lives he saved.”

     One of the Links posted is a Song Written About Hugh:
     Song for Hugh Thompson

     Lyrics

8. 

   supersoling on January 7, 2006 at 6:59 am

   

9. 

   BrendaStewart on January 7, 2006 at 12:49 pm

   

   Peace

10. 

    Oui on January 7, 2006 at 1:24 pm

    .

    Elusive Kill Ratio Larry Johnson – Iraq 160:1 ¶ Vietnam 20:1

    It is worth recalling that in Vietnam we killed close to 1 million North Vietnamese while we suffered 57,000 fatalities. That was a kill ratio of roughly 200 to 1. Unfortunately, we do not know where this magical tipping point is.

    Although our troops and intelligence operatives are killing scores of insurgents (my friend CIA buddy – estimated the kill rate at 160 enemy per each friendly) the insurgents keep coming.

    

    From memory of Vietnam era, the code for kill ratio was a standard 10:1 on the battlefield. Lose one of our own in the jungle, there would be 10 of them! This was a standard multiplication during Vietnam era for U.S. Command or DoD press release.

    What is the implication of the erroneous kill ratio as discussed in Larry Johnson’s diary, read my new diary …

    Need action 2006 to bash some sense in the heads of voters for Midterm Election coming November. Need to refocus on the real issues and not a moving goal to suit political gains at the expense of our military in Iraq, and the lower income Americans supporting a corporate regime in Washington to advance tax cuts for the top incomes.

    Dems’ Template for Success: Follow Jack Murtha …  

    

    LEAVE Iraq to the Iraqis

    “Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
    For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”

    ▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY