Last November, a 21-year-old soldier from my hometown of Shubuta MS was killed in Iraq: 2nd Miss. soldier ID'd in fatal crash Jackson (MS) Clarion-Ledger 11/19/03. He graduated from the same high school I attended. He sang in the choir at Bethel United Methodist Church. These stories are always heartbreaking:
Damian Heidelberg, the ninth Mississippian killed in Iraq, left behind a brother, a sister and a 2-year-old daughter, Stacy, who lives with her mother and stepfather in Shubuta.Today, we have the gruesome news about from Falluja, Iraq, of civilians being killed by guerrillas, including a woman and at least one American, and then there bodies being mutilated and hung publicly off a bridge. One body was dragged through the streets tied behind a car.
"We have nothing but pride for him," Bitha Heidelberg [his grandmother] said.
"I'm hurting real bad, and I was always afraid for him, but nothing can stop the pride we feel."
I'm sure that we'll hear lots of comparisons to the Black Hawk Down incident in Somalia as various Big Pundits spin the story. And it would be almost silly to say that outrage at the incident is justifiable, because people will obviously be outraged by the story.
This is the kind of war we're in. The Iraq invasion and occupation was the first time that the United States has put itself in a situation in the Middle East comparable to the Israelis in the occupied territories. (Although we don't have an equivalent goal to the Likud hardliners who want to drive Palestinians completely out of their own territory.)
Tags: damian heidelberg, iraq war
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