While local papers are reporting on this story, the Dept. of Defense has yet to release an official PR on Army Sgt. Shaffer's death. So am not beginning this memorial in the usual way.
In fact, the picture is likewise atypical. On the left side of the photo of Army Sgt. Edward W. Shaffer, 23 of Mont Alto, PA, is an image from Iraq of a car bomb, an IED, being detonated by US troops. An image that compelled me to add this hero to my ongoing sample of the brave American's who have sacrificed their lives in our behalf.
The most common means by which US soldiers die in Iraq are the IED. And most commonly they are triggered as a convoy passes with soldiers in jeeps, trucks, humvees, tanks. And I've imagined that the percussive force of the explosion was the thing that killed them. That is, until I saw this photograph. And then read this article. And then came to this realization: our brave young men and women are being incinerated....
And our President manages to sleep well, to have no earthly idea of how to proceed, and to, from time to time, dismiss the entire war as a mere "comma" in the annals of history and to make jokes about his erroneous reason (WMD) with the Washington Press Corp for driving us into this Hell. So forgive my lack of imagination, but I don't get it.
“Mont Alto Soldier Dies From His Injuries”
The war in Iraq has claimed the life of a young Mont Alto soldier, critically injured when a roadside bomb exploded near his Bradley fighting machine Nov. 13 in Ramadi.
Sgt. Edward W. Shaffer, 23, died at 2:09 p.m. Wednesday in Brooke Army Medical Center, Fort Sam Houston, Texas, where he had been hospitalized with burns over 80 percent of his body. Both hands and his left foot had been amputated since the explosion.
“We've lost a good son ... he was good to everybody,” his father, Edward C. Shaffer said this morning.
Shaffer and his wife, Brenda, as well as the soldier's girlfriend, Justina Martinez of Mont Alto and aunt and uncle Rod and Jody Shaffer of Scotland, were with him when he died.
“He went peacefully ... with no pain,” according to his father.
The soldier was sedated and hard to understand when he spoke, his father said.
“We talked to him just before he passed away. He was conscious for a little bit. You couldn't tell what he was saying,” the elder Shaffer said.
Shaffer was “very sick” since skin graft surgery last Wednesday failed, noted his father. “The doctors told us anything could happen at any time.”
The family kept a vigil by the soldier's bedside, “sitting and watching,” his father said. The Shaffers had rejoined their son Dec. 17, after being home in Mont Alto for about a month.
The Shaffers are planning to return home tomorrow and then will make arrangements for a military funeral.
Edward L. Shaffer of Mont Alto wants people to remember his grandson as being “a great soldier, a great hero and a great buddy to all his comrades. We're really going to miss him ... this will be a great loss to our family.”
The 2002 Waynesboro Area Senior High School graduate was awarded a Purple Heart at an Army hospital in Germany before he was flown to Texas, according to his father.
Shaffer's parents and brother accompanied him on the journey.
Shaffer, a gunnery sergeant serving in the 136th Infantry, 3rd platoon, B Company, enlisted in the Army after graduating from Thompson Institute. He had served in Iraq for eight months and was due to come home Feb. 18.
Shaffer had undergone five surgeries, the last being skin grafting with skin grown from his own cells.
The quiet young man was close to his parents, Edward C. and Brenda Shaffer, and younger brother, Timothy, 22, and enjoyed computers.
The soldier was last home in July.
Shaffer described his son as a fighter, a go-getter who gave 100 percent to whatever he did.
The family is grateful for the support they have received since the accident.
“It's been great ... overwhelming,” Edward C. Shaffer said.
The local communities had rallied around the family, with hundreds of people sending well wishes via a link on The Record Herald's Web site as well as contributing to a benefit fund set up through F&M Trust in Mont Alto.
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