Another Week ....Another 18 Americans killed in Iraq (click here to pay your respects by viewing the others)
This was Private First Class Nathaniel Detample, Company A, 1st Battalion,111th infantry regiment, Pennsylvania Army National Guard. He was from Morrisville Pennsylvania. On the same day that I was mindlessly blogging about the anniversary of Jerry Garcia's death, Nathaniel along with 3 others were killed when a mine exploded following an enemy attack with small-arms fire in Bayji, Iraq. Other than the fact that he we shared an area code (Morrisville is just north of Philadelphia) I know nothing else about him. He was the same age as my niece Rachel. Do you know anyone who was born in 1986? He was 3 when the Berlin Wall came down, 6 when Bill Clinton was first elected and 13 when the clock struck "Y 2 K ". And now? The CNN on-line report that I quoted above mentions the "enemy." But who were we told was the enemy when we went to war? Wasn't Mission Accomplished 2 years ago when the Iraqi Army went down? We were told that we would be welcomed as liberators.