Apt Things
You guys are great...
I love all of you guys...
I mean i have so many emails wanting to help me with my apartment stuff. Well for starters, i paid a WOMAN(i finally confessed..lol) to decorate my old apartment, and i will have to find one with good decorative skills, and second of all i cant just take you guys things. I am grateful for the gesture which is good, but i dont deserve all of that guys. However maybe i can buy some things from you guys. Either way, i still am in dire need of a female with deocrative skills. She has to have these skills, but remeber that i am a bachelor without kids, and NO PINK ROSES OR DAISES IN THE BATHROOM OR ANY STUFF LIKE THAT.. :D
See ya later...
I have to go and meet CAP and the crew. The B-52 pilots and 8th AF are gonna try to pick us for answers for the upcoming missions in Iraq that they will be flying, and well they wont get anywhere...I'll write back later
Also here is a story about my buddy CWO Weaver who was stationed in IRAQ with me. We trained a bit together, but he didnt make it...the media released his final letter with the approval of his family. We flew in the same bird and did everything the same pretty much. He was just always in the bird. IT coulda beeen me. Thanks for all of your prayers...
The battlefield letter from father to daughter begins: "My Dearest Little Savannah."
Like every soldier at war in Iraq, Army Chief Warrant Officer Aaron Weaver scratched down on paper expressions of love and longing. He wrote about his dreams of the future for his 15-month-old child.
There was a spark of parental insight: "I always knew that having children is special to a parent, but it means so much more than I ever imagined. ... You are the meaning of my life. You make my heart pound with joy and pride. No matter what happens to me or where we go, you will always know that I love you."
The letter was found on Weaver's body when he died Jan. 8, 2004, in the crash of a Black Hawk helicopter shot down by insurgents.
Weaver, 32, joined the roll of U.S. troops who have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003. On Tuesday, that tally reached 2,000 with the announcement of three more deaths: George T. Alexander Jr., 34, of Killeen, Texas, an Army sergeant who died of wounds at a military hospital; and a Marine and a sailor, both unidentified, killed last week in fighting west of Baghdad.
In recent weeks, the pace of dying has doubled to more than a dozen deaths a week.
Nearly seven of 10 American troops lost were soldiers. There were small numbers of sailors and airmen and one Coast Guardsman. Almost all the others who died were Marines. Forty-three were women. About a quarter were from the National Guard or Reserve.
The letters home, a mix of the plain and poetic, are a poignant legacy of those American dead.
Weaver's letter is today framed and hanging in Savannah's bedroom in Fayetteville, N.C. "I would hope that when she grows up, she knows how much he adored her," says Nancy Weaver, the soldier's widow. Savannah is 3 now.
Scholars who study and collect war correspondence say the letters help bring into focus individual loss. "The overall impact of these letters is that it reminds us of the humanity of these troops and how they are not statistics," says Andrew Carroll, editor of two collections, Behind the Lines and War Letters.
"So that when we look at a number like 2,000, those are 2,000 individual stories of lives lost, every one of them that had enormous potential, and ... 2,000 families that have been impacted as well."
The letters transcend opinion and politics, says Jon Peede, director of Operation Homecoming, a project of the National Endowment for the Arts to collect the writings of men and women at war. "You can be for or against the war, and be moved by these writings," he says.
The letters and e-mails that families shared with USA TODAY begin with "Hi, Princess" or "Hey, Mom," with "Hey, Baby" or "Dear Family." They tell of sandstorms and triple-digit temperatures, the monotony of war and a gnawing desire for home and normalcy.
"Keep your eyes open for a 323 or 325 BMW, 2002 or 2003. That's what I want," Marine Lance Cpl. Deryk Hallal, 24, writes to his parents in Indianapolis, in a letter received on April 3, 2004, "Oh! Send some goodies. Beef jerky and things like that. Tell people at church to keep praying for everyone here."
Often, soldiers and Marines allude to the death tugging at them each day.
"God was with us on all of our patrols," Hallal writes. He was shot and killed in Ramadi on April 6, 2004. It was one of the war's bloodiest months: 135 Americans died.
Carroll says a last letter has the power to re-animate, if only for a moment, those lost. "It draws us into their story," he says. "There is that sense of mystery, of what was that person thinking and what happened to them."
I love all of you guys...
I mean i have so many emails wanting to help me with my apartment stuff. Well for starters, i paid a WOMAN(i finally confessed..lol) to decorate my old apartment, and i will have to find one with good decorative skills, and second of all i cant just take you guys things. I am grateful for the gesture which is good, but i dont deserve all of that guys. However maybe i can buy some things from you guys. Either way, i still am in dire need of a female with deocrative skills. She has to have these skills, but remeber that i am a bachelor without kids, and NO PINK ROSES OR DAISES IN THE BATHROOM OR ANY STUFF LIKE THAT.. :D
See ya later...
I have to go and meet CAP and the crew. The B-52 pilots and 8th AF are gonna try to pick us for answers for the upcoming missions in Iraq that they will be flying, and well they wont get anywhere...I'll write back later
Also here is a story about my buddy CWO Weaver who was stationed in IRAQ with me. We trained a bit together, but he didnt make it...the media released his final letter with the approval of his family. We flew in the same bird and did everything the same pretty much. He was just always in the bird. IT coulda beeen me. Thanks for all of your prayers...
The battlefield letter from father to daughter begins: "My Dearest Little Savannah."
Like every soldier at war in Iraq, Army Chief Warrant Officer Aaron Weaver scratched down on paper expressions of love and longing. He wrote about his dreams of the future for his 15-month-old child.
There was a spark of parental insight: "I always knew that having children is special to a parent, but it means so much more than I ever imagined. ... You are the meaning of my life. You make my heart pound with joy and pride. No matter what happens to me or where we go, you will always know that I love you."
The letter was found on Weaver's body when he died Jan. 8, 2004, in the crash of a Black Hawk helicopter shot down by insurgents.
Weaver, 32, joined the roll of U.S. troops who have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003. On Tuesday, that tally reached 2,000 with the announcement of three more deaths: George T. Alexander Jr., 34, of Killeen, Texas, an Army sergeant who died of wounds at a military hospital; and a Marine and a sailor, both unidentified, killed last week in fighting west of Baghdad.
In recent weeks, the pace of dying has doubled to more than a dozen deaths a week.
Nearly seven of 10 American troops lost were soldiers. There were small numbers of sailors and airmen and one Coast Guardsman. Almost all the others who died were Marines. Forty-three were women. About a quarter were from the National Guard or Reserve.
The letters home, a mix of the plain and poetic, are a poignant legacy of those American dead.
Weaver's letter is today framed and hanging in Savannah's bedroom in Fayetteville, N.C. "I would hope that when she grows up, she knows how much he adored her," says Nancy Weaver, the soldier's widow. Savannah is 3 now.
Scholars who study and collect war correspondence say the letters help bring into focus individual loss. "The overall impact of these letters is that it reminds us of the humanity of these troops and how they are not statistics," says Andrew Carroll, editor of two collections, Behind the Lines and War Letters.
"So that when we look at a number like 2,000, those are 2,000 individual stories of lives lost, every one of them that had enormous potential, and ... 2,000 families that have been impacted as well."
The letters transcend opinion and politics, says Jon Peede, director of Operation Homecoming, a project of the National Endowment for the Arts to collect the writings of men and women at war. "You can be for or against the war, and be moved by these writings," he says.
The letters and e-mails that families shared with USA TODAY begin with "Hi, Princess" or "Hey, Mom," with "Hey, Baby" or "Dear Family." They tell of sandstorms and triple-digit temperatures, the monotony of war and a gnawing desire for home and normalcy.
"Keep your eyes open for a 323 or 325 BMW, 2002 or 2003. That's what I want," Marine Lance Cpl. Deryk Hallal, 24, writes to his parents in Indianapolis, in a letter received on April 3, 2004, "Oh! Send some goodies. Beef jerky and things like that. Tell people at church to keep praying for everyone here."
Often, soldiers and Marines allude to the death tugging at them each day.
"God was with us on all of our patrols," Hallal writes. He was shot and killed in Ramadi on April 6, 2004. It was one of the war's bloodiest months: 135 Americans died.
Carroll says a last letter has the power to re-animate, if only for a moment, those lost. "It draws us into their story," he says. "There is that sense of mystery, of what was that person thinking and what happened to them."
posted by ME at 4:10 PM
5 Comments:
That is so sad. SO SAD.
But selfishly, I'm glad you're home safe. And if you need design advice, you let me know -- I promise not to tell you to put up pictures of flowers. Ok, maybe just one. HA! Just kidding.
I cannot even begin to imagine how you process everything you have been thru and all of the friends/collegues you have lost. And then you start thinking that each of them has like a zillion people who love each of them including parents, siblings, wives, husbands and kids. I breaks my heart. I'm glad you made it home.
As for the whole decorating thing...Britt wants to be an interior designer and studies all she can now. She likes modern stuff-no roses and frou-frou stuff for her LOL!
Finally someone at the top is saying the things I've been saying. Maybe now, people will listen.
That is just heartbreaking (the second part of your post). Every single person killed over there was someone important in somebody's life - and the loss of them has a huge impact on many, even if it goes unnoticed by most.
As for the decorating.. if you're knocking out pink - you've knocked out Holli. And roses??? What's wrong with you.
Wow so powerful..That was refreshing to read somehow. Keeps on reminding me to buck up and quit worrying about Little Stuff. Little stuff doesn't matter so much when people are dieing. Even with Rudi dying a few months ago was such a huge impact on our entire town... ya know. That's a lot of people effected. They shut down our mill for him, losing millions of dollars... and you're talking 2000 of those kinda of people..well for the most part.
Pretty intense stuff to think about. Don't know if I will let myself for too much longer..Tomorrow I will think more, but as for today, it's hurting my head. (not really. )
Have a great day! And I'm happy that you're home!
Haley
Post a Comment
<< Home