55.0°,
Mostly Cloudy Honoring the fallen, here and over there
According to official reports, six American soldiers were killed during the first two weeks of this month in Afghanistan, casualties of Operation Enduring Freedom. They were:
May 2: Sgt. Ralph Mena, 27, Hutchinson, Kan., Army 72nd Expeditionary Signal Battalion.
May 2: Master Sgt. Mark W. Coleman, 40, Centerville, Wash., Army Special Forces.
May 3: Airman 1st Class Austin H. Gates Benson, 26, Hellertown, Pa.
May 12: Cpl. Jeffrey Johnson, 21, Tomball, Texas, Third Battalion, First Marine Regiment, First Marine Division, First Marine Expeditionary Force.
May 12: Sgt. Joshua D. Desforges, 23, Ludlow, Mass., First Battalion, Sixth Marine Regiment, Second Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force.
May 12: Sgt. Donald J. Lamar II, 23, Fredericksburg, Va., First Battalion, Second Marine Regiment, Second Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force.
Several died in explosions triggered by improvised explosive devices; one was fatally injured in an accident. Two died “while supporting combat operations” in Helmand Province.
These young soldiers, so far from home, so far from mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers, died during a month in which Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said that although progress is being made, “Nobody is winning at this point.”
These fallen soldiers join more than 4,000 other young men and women who have died in Iraq and more than 1,000 who have died so far in Afghanistan. They left families and jobs and all the joys and sorrows that comprise a 20-year-old’s life to do their duty, to take up a fight they were told was just and necessary.
Since this country launched its attack against Iraq in March 2003, more than seven years ago, we have reaped what we have sown: violent death and unending grief. Now we are engaged in a second war in Afghanistan, recently ratcheted up with additional forces and focus. How can we know that this new front is any more necessary or potentially successful than the war in Iraq?
