I've been posting various images of our brave soldiers who have died in the 'War on Terrorism' for some time now. I regret that it's only a sampling, a representation of the many by the few. Besides an image, and the official DoD announcement, I also include something from the public press or other source that tells us something more about who they were and how their family, friends, and community are responding to their death. Increasingly these stories are portraying people who are more than grief stricken. They are angry at our leaders; and by extension, perhaps, at all of us who tolerate their incompitence. They share stories of their departed hero's own doubts and confusion over this nebulous endeavor. The tide is turning, beware the tsunami....
Army Sgt. William W. Crow Jr., 28, of Grandview Plaza, Kan., died June 28 in Baghdad, of wounds sustained when his vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 2d Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan.
“Inglis [Florida] Family Mourns Soldier Killed In Iraq”
INGLIS - It was around 9 p.m. Thursday when Kathryn Mondini drove up to her apartment, tired from driving all day from North Carolina. She had seen police cars in the neighborhood, but didn't think much of it, thinking it was part of a regular patrol.
She went inside and picked up the phone to call a neighbor when someone knocked on the door.
When she opened it, she saw two Army officers.
"I slammed the door and threw myself to the floor,'' she said Friday afternoon, still in a state of shock and weeping when looking at her son's picture.
Sgt. William Wayne Crow, 28, Mondini's only son, was killed in Iraq early Thursday morning when the Humvee he was driving rolled over an improvised explosive device, or an IED.
Mondini held on to Associated Press stories she had printed off the Internet.
She had circled the paragraphs that had mentioned the death of her son: "One American soldier killed,'' while in a combat patrol in eastern Baghdad, it read.
"He was my baby -- he was my lifeline,'' she said.
Her daughter, Candace Hudson, sat beside her in their small living room. Her eyes were red, too, from mourning the loss of her brother.
Her cell phone, and the house phone, kept ringing with friends and family wanting to know what happened, express how sorry they were and ask how they could help.
Mondini, who had not seen her son since February, doesn't have all the answers yet.
"Where's my son?'' she cried. "In pieces?''
Miles away, in Fort Riley, Kan., Crow's wife, Michelle, kept the officers outside her door for 20 minutes early Thursday morning.
"I figured if I didn't let them in, I wouldn't have to know what happened,'' said the mother of four on Friday, her voice sad and monotone on the telephone.
She and Crow got married four years ago. She already had two sons, Chris and David, and with Crow, they have two little girls, Alexis and Kala.
Crow enlisted in the military right out of Belleview High School. He first went to Korea. And then to Iraq.
The last time Crow had come back from Iraq, he told his mother that the war was different this time.
"He said it's like they're fighting a ghost and they were not equipped to fight the ghosts,'' Mondini recalled.
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