I get articles from a co-worker who just retired form the Navy and stills has friends that are active and send him letters from marines over in Iraq. I occasionally even read some of the e-mails that he gets sent to him. Anyway I am posting this as it is a article in Military.com a great place to read about what is happening and articles from those that are over there.

WASHINGTON - As the wife of a 25 year Air Force veteran, Debra Bascom has long dreaded the day that word would arrive on her doorstep that her husband had died on a distant battlefield.

"It never occurred to me that such an incident would occur for my son instead," she wrote in a letter this week to President Bush describing the pain of losing her oldest son, Marine Corps Sgt. Douglas E. Bascom, 25, of Colorado Springs, Colo. He was killed by insurgents in western Iraq on Oct. 20.

Bascom is one of more than 1,100 American troops who have died in the Iraq conflict, but the first from a rarely mobilized sector of the military known as the Individual Ready Reserve.

Hundreds of the Army's Individual Ready Reserve have failed to report for duty on time since the Army began sending out mobilization orders to individual reservists last summer, but Debra Bascom said her son never hesitated when the Marine Corps called last April with his orders.

"He wanted to go to Iraq and fight and serve," she said in a telephone interview Tuesday.

Individual Ready Reserve members are people who were honorably discharged after finishing their active-duty service, usually four to six years, but remained in the ready reserve for the rest of the eight-year commitment they made when they joined the Army. They are separate from the reserve troops who are more routinely mobilized - the National Guard and Reserve.





Bascom joined the Marines at age 19 and spent four years on active duty. Once he was out of uniform he began to feel out of place, knowing that thousands of Marines were fighting in Iraq.

"He was a Marine," his mother said. "He told me that if you're a Marine you protect your own, you protect their back, you fight. You don't stay home." When the Iraq war started in March 2003 Bascom's parents encouraged him to get out of the Marines and avoid the risk of combat.

"He did get out, but it bothered him," Debra said. "He hadn't done what he felt was the right thing. So when he got back in he told me: `Mom, I have to go. I'll be careful, but I have to go because I'm a Marine.'"

Leaving his job at a savings and loan, Bascom found himself in Iraq in early September, assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment. On Oct. 17 he called home to tell his parents that he'd been awarded a Purple Heart for a flesh wound he suffered about two weeks earlier when a bullet grazed his arm.

Three days later he was killed, apparently near the city of Ramadi, a stronghold of the insurgency and one of the most dangerous places in Iraq for U.S. troops. Details are still sketchy, but apparently shrapnel from a bomb or grenade penetrated behind his left ear, killing him instantly.

In her letter to Bush, Debra Bascom said she supports the president's approach to fighting terrorism.

"I believe my son died for a cause that is essential to the welfare of our world," she wrote.

She told the president that two days after the family was notified of Douglas's death, an e-mail from him arrived "telling us how happy he was to be serving" and how he looked forward to returning home. He also mentioned that he'd written letters still winding their way to Colorado.

"This is a mixed blessing," she told Bush. "How does one endure the loss of a loved one as messages of life and the future continue to arrive in the mail?"

Sound Off...What do you think?

 

Her son served and died, the mother understands this and is proud. That's a true patroitic American family.

God Bless the troops!

 

With al due respect to the mother, where is the pride in death for the war in Iraq? Isnt exactly WW2.

 

The "pride" the mother feels Nam, is that her son served this country, and died doing what he believed in, and what the country asked of him...

God willing, there will never be another war like WWII, but one shoudl be proud of their military service, whether they returned hom a combat veteran, or even if they never fired a shot.

Service men & women serve the country. They put aside their personal beliefs, and thier fears and they do what is asked of them, as a team, and as a unit.

It seems you know nothing about that....

Be glad that this mother can feel pride even in her son's death. How dare you speak down of his sacrifice... Were it not for men like her son, you would be 'sprechen sie Deutch" right now, if not Russkie.

 

Maybe its pride in the fact that her son died serving his country, it doesn’t matter if it was on Bunker Hill, the delta in New Orleans, the shores of Tripoli, the fields of Gettysburg, the beaches of Normandy or Iwo Jima, Chosin Reservoir, Khe San, the jungles of Panama and Grenada, or the sands of Iraq and Afghanistan. The fact that he sacrificed his life for his country makes his as noble and meaningful as any that came before it, or will come after it regardless of what the conflict entails. Soldiers don't make policy; they have to carry out policy sent down from elected officials. God bless all the families who have lost loved ones in all the wars/ conflicts/ police actions that the United States of America has been involved in, regardless of weather or not they supported the conflict. Those loved ones are heroes and patriots and nothing will change that. JMHO

damn cia-agent beat me to the punch.

 

I think that is a wonderful story of service and pride. This young man had strong convictions of serving his country and being former servicemen myself, I can understand his point of view. In my family, we have had over four generations of military service including my fathers’ Grand Father who serviced in the Mexican Army. And yes we have lost more than a couple relatives who had made the ultimate sacrifice. I have great respect anyone who packs the gear to serve his or her country.

God Bless that young man and his family.

 

Watch this video and maybe you will understand. Its 6 minutes and judging from your post you need to watch it.

http://www.usmc.mil/comrel/120day.nsf/cmc_birthday.wmv

 

Whether you agree with the war in Iraq or not has nothing to do with it. That man served his country, his family SHOULD be proud, and we all owe him respect. It is not the soldiers who decide when and where they fight, it is theirs to do their duty, and this man did.

 

Loudist...You've got no one fooled!

 

This goes to any of the American military personel that read these threads. And especially to the family's of all those American troops that have been killed in the line of duty.

I am a Canadian citizen, and as you would expect I am proud of my country. There are alot of jokes in these forums between F150 online's Canadian and American members. And there are sometimes dumb things said in fun, all harmless and the kind of stuff friends do and say.

But let me be serious here. What is happening in Iraq and Afganistan is no joke. But it is nessesary to protect the freedoms that were won by our grandfathers and great grandfathers in WWI and WWII.

I know that Canada's military isn't held in very high regard by the Americans. for the most part. Heck it's really not something we're proud of at home either. But make no mistake about it there are lots of us up north here that believe in, understand and support what the American troops are being asked to do for your country. Let me correct that, because the results of the battles being fought by the United States are something that people in my country will enjoy as well.

We are ashamed of the actions of our government in it's decisions to not support our American friends. Other than the token "support" role our military plays. Because let's face it that's about all the help we can provide. It's not that our men and women don't want to help, they just don't have the resources to do it.

So on behalf of myself and many others, I would like to say thank you, to all those American men and women risking their lives everyday to protect those freedoms that were won all those years ago.

Thank you especially to those that have already been killed protecting those same freedoms. And my sympathy's to the families of those men and women that have been killed.

GOD BLESS AMERICA AND THANK YOU!!! LET US NEVER FORGET !!