( NEW ) Marine killed in bombing (# 1025)

[saigon68]

Guam loses third soldier in Iraq war


http://www.guampdn.com/news/stories/20040917/localnews/1246965.html


U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. JayGee Ngirmidol Meluat, a George Washington High School graduate of the class of 1999 and a father, died on Sept. 14, becoming Guam's third son killed in the Iraqi conflict.

Meluat was a native of Palau, the youngest child of 12 children, and had moved to Guam as a teenager to live with one of his older sisters.

Confirmed by I Casualties as # 1025 http://icasualties.org/oif/

[saigon68]

1. # 47 This month already

Disgusting

[henslee]

8. On 9/7 we hit 1000. Today its 1,025. 25 dead in 9 days. Much higher

that the 13 a week we were averaging.

[JuniorPlankton]

2. I am afraid nobody will care until it hits another round number n/t

[AlCzervik]

3. Ok George, they brought it.

[Emboldened Chimp]

4. 1025 already?

It was 1017 yesterday, last time I checked. This is so fucking out of control. I despise the Chimp more and more each day...

[saigon68]

5. Yes confirmed

A number of these died several days ago, apparently it took a while to notify the families

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

6. Semper Fidelis brother.

It grieves me to know you have made the ultimate sacrifice for what appears to be nothing more than a business deal for a few rich fat cats.
Rest in Peace,
ex-Sergeant, USMC, 1968-72.

[hadrons]

7. if you randomly asked 100 people ....

"based on the TV news/newspapers you watch/read, how many soldiers were killed in Iraq so far in Sept. what would be the number?"

I would say 10 myself if I wasn't coming to this site

[seemslikeadream]

9. How many more georgie, how many more?

[0007]

16. Great photos, hope no one gets fired for exposing the truth.

[seemslikeadream]

17. Sorry 0007 I should have posted the link

and explain, yes they did get fired for exposing the truth.

white_rider
Photos of coffins break through censorship established by Bush

http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2004/abril/juev22/18ataud.html

THE censorship established by the White House on photos of the coffins of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq has been broken. Last Sunday, The Seattle Times newspaper rebelled against the Bush administration ban and published an article titled The somber labor of honoring the fallen, which began by describing the image of a pile of aluminum boxes draped in U.S. flags.

Last Monday, the popular news web site, Drudge Report, had as a front page headline, The media has corpses, over a photo of 18 coffins.

Footage of the inside of a cargo plane carrying coffins can be found on http://www.thememoryhole.org , where it is explained that a number of images are circulating on web sites and e-mail, sidestepping the U.S. military’s position. It also recommends sending on similar images.

Photos of coffins break through censorship established by Bush
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=503833


I bet you already knew the answer :hi:

Do you remember how they treated these guys a little differently?

[0007]

22. I honestly thought they were new photos!

:yourock:

[Serial Mom]

10. There may be one more!

It was reported this morning that a young marine from my area was killed while on his LAST mission before returning home. I could not find his name on http://icasualties.org/oif /.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/sep04/259318.asp?source=tmj4

Last Iraq mission claims local man

By TOM HELD

,snip>

Cpl. Adrian Soltau's second tour of duty in Operation Iraqi Freedom ended in an explosion Monday. The 21-year-old became the 21st soldier from Wisconsin and the second graduate of Milwaukee Public Schools to die in the fighting since the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003.

He last spoke to his father, Andrew Soltau, by telephone on Saturday.

"He told me this was his last mission before he comes home, and I told him not to say that," the elder Soltau said Wednesday. "I didn't like those words, 'his last mission,' and I told him to call me when he gets back.


<snip>

47 this month already!!!!!! - OUTRAGEOUS!!!

[dbt]

11. Thank you, saigon.

This task you have undertaken is as necessary as it is grim. If you had not decided to keep us informed of the death count, I wouldn't know just how bad things really are now.

I am sorry for this burden you have picked up. May it end soon!

:grr:
dbt

PS: Have I mentioned that SOMEbody needs to burn in HELL for this?

[Maeve]

12. Several SOMEbodies, my friend

Dubya didn't do it on his own--didn't even come up with the idea by hisself...
:grr:

[dbt]

18. Ah! Meeting the Storyteller in the Charnel House.

How horribly poetic!

:hi: Maeve!
dbt

[Maeve]

25. Where the Morrigan goes, the bard must follow

And the ravens of war are out in force...

Altho DemoTex has taken the bardic role by posting Owen's "Dulce et decorum est" in these threads.

:hi: back atcha!

[nibbana]

13. Bush wants this election about terrorism not Iraq...Discuss Iraq

every chance we get...

[DemoTex]

14. The old lie: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen

[PA Democrat]

20. I read this poem to my 15 year old son just last night, Demo Tex

We were discussing nationalism, and how it can blind people to the realities of war. He had asked me to proofread a paper he had written for his English class that was about war atrocities.

[Jacobin]

21. Great poem. Very powerful.

It still amazes me how poetry can hammer an emotion and explain things in a few paragraphs that thousands of pages of prose can't.

Magical.

[DemoTex]

23. Here is another anti-war poem of Wilfred Owen:

Anthem for Doomed Youth


What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, -- -
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.


Wilfred Owen
1893-1918

[Jacobin]

24. Hey, Demo. I just googled this up on Wilfred Owen.

I'm sure you know this because you know his work, but thought I'd post it for others who may have been similarly moved:

A brief biography:

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen was born on March 18, 1893. He was on the Continent teaching until he visited a hospital for the wounded and then decided, in September, 1915, to return to England and enlist. "I came out in order to help these boys-- directly by leading them as well as an officer can; indirectly, by watching their sufferings that I may speak of them as well as a pleader can. I have done the first" (October, 1918).

Owen was injured in March 1917 and sent home; he was fit for duty in August, 1918, and returned to the front. November 4, just seven days before the Armistice, he was caught in a German machine gun attack and killed. He was twenty-five when he died.

The bells were ringing on November 11, 1918, in Shrewsbury to celebrate the Armistice when the doorbell rang at his parent's home, bringing them the telegram telling them their son was dead.





I haven't been so moved by writing in decades. Thank you very much for turning me on to his poetry.

What a life

[DemoTex]

29. The "Salter" part of his name reminds me of another great war writer:

James Salter. James Salter's The Hunters (1956) is not only one of the best books of the Korean War genre, it is one of the best books of the fighter pilot genre too. Salter is extremely poetic in his style of fiction.

[Maeve]

26. Here's another poem/song that fits

By Eric Bogle, it's called "Green Fields of France" or "No Man's Land" and is addressed to the grave of a 19 year-old who died in WWI.

Due to copyright, I'll just give the last verse and chorus:

And I can't help but wonder, now Willie McBride,
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you "The Cause?"
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain,
For Willie McBride, it's all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.

Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the pipes lowly?
Did the rifles fire o'er you as they lowered you down?
Did the bugles sound "The Last Post" in chorus?
Did the pipes play "The Flowers of the Forest"?

(available many places on the web, just google "Green fields of france" lyrics)

[Judi Lynn]

15. So interesting the numbers are flying by now, considering

there simply WEREN'T any people getting killed during the Republican convention. I know because I was here reading DU'ers who were watching and commenting about it.

It's as if there was a moratorium on killing American soldiers while our wholesome, joyous, saintly Republicans whooped it up with their Purple Heart bandages at their gathering in New York.

[PurityOfEssence]

19. Sy, you must be going nuts right now; my heart goes out to you

You're a longtime poster here and have your head screwed on straight in a way few people do. You've said the hard truth about the mindsets of some of those who get involved in war with the unblinking candor of someone who's been there, and I can only imagine what all this is doing to you.

This is one of the wickedest and most scurrilous packs of lies that a man can loose on the world, and history shows us where this is going. Our dewy-eyed beliefs of the goodness of this country are betrayed every day by madmen bent on world domination and drunk with the joy of brutality as their birthright.

[saigon68]

28. A BAD DAY ITS UP TO 1029

will make a new thread w/ names

Thanks for the push to keep it going

[Jacobin]

27. Kick for the dead