Guest from the Right: Free0352

I don't blog about the war.

From the very first post I did on [my] blog, I made it clear I wasn't going to be talking about my combat experiences. I did that once, and the Army got very upset with me. I intended to never make that mistake again. Today I'm going to break that rule. If the Army wants to prosecute me, fine.

I'm trying to make a point.

During my last tour an EFP went off near the corner of Route Aerials and Route Pluto. The EFP is an IED that shoots a copper plate (turned to plasma from a shaped charge) like a bullet to pierce armor. A long story short, one of these hit a Soldier who I didn't really know. He was in a different company than me, and was an attachment from the tank battalion. He was behind the machine gun in the turret when he was hit. The blast decapitated him, and completely destroyed his head.

I remember after it happened, they brought his vehicle, and his weapon back to JSS Sadr City where I was. I remember looking down at his M240B in the Operations Center and seeing pieces of his remains on the weapon. I went to the aid station and got a bio hazard bag, and with great respect for that Soldier I scraped the pieces of his skull that had been fused to the stock of the machine gun from the heat of the blast, and placed them in the bio hazard bag. I then made sure that all of his remains were returned to his family. I'm not sure anyone knows about this other than the medic I turned his remains over to, but I guess now the whole world knows.

The point is, I wasn't about to throw any part of him away.

Not like these people did.

Remember when I did the post about Scott Zaur's suicide and how things were changing? This illustrates the change perfectly, and tragically.

This is about RESPECT. That's the point I'm trying to make.

Where has it gone?

I'm not so much angry at the personnel who did this, as I am they didn't know any better or didn't care. Why aren't we teaching them values anymore?

(You can read Free daily at John Galt for President)