NYT "Roster of the Dead" (KIA.Iraq) link (heartbreaking)

[henslee]

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/national/20040909_THOUSAND_GRAPHIC/index_PICTURES.html

[hlthe2b]

1. Truly... so many extremely young faces; I counted at least 14 women

So much promise.... Rest in PEACE (& harmony with those equally tragic Iraqi dead).

[LizW]

2. Did you hear the story on NPR yesterday

about the young soldier named Perez (I believe), 19 years old, who was killed on his third day in Iraq? It was a heartbreaking profile.

He followed his father's career path into the Army, signing up right out of high school. When he got orders for Iraq, he begged his high school girlfriend's parents to allow them to marry before he left. She is very young. He told her mother that he felt that he might not come back, and that if he died in Iraq, she would have benefits and money for college. He wanted to be able to take care of her in the only way he could.

The parents allowed them to marry, and they had the ceremony on the lawn of her house. It was the first time the parents had seen him in uniform, and they all cried. Withing three weeks, he was dead and his wife is a seventeen year-old widow, beginning her senior year of high school. She said of her wedding, (paraphrasing): "We planned to have a bigger ceremony when he got back, with a reception and all, but...(long pause)...it was fine. It was perfect."

:cry: I was crying in my car on the way to work.