Hundreds Mourn Their Sister in Arms

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-women4oct04-1,1,6817134.story?coll=la-home-leftrail

The mournful notes of a solitary bugler blowing taps rose into the breezeless desert air. In a final roll call, her name — Analaura Esparza — was intoned three times, with long pauses between, as if she might answer.

Hundreds of soldiers from the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division lined up in long, silent rows Friday to pay tribute to Esparza, a 21-year-old private first class killed two days earlier when a bomb went off almost directly beneath the Humvee she was driving, ripping into her left leg and chest.

A member of a forward support company, she was returning to base after a supply run in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's restive hometown.

A world away, in a tidy middle-class neighborhood outside Houston, where wildflowers line the sidewalks and every other house seems to have a basketball hoop in the driveway, the cries of a mother who had lost her only child echoed through a cul-de-sac Friday.

"Que paso?" Armandina Esparza screamed again and again. "What happened?"

[criticalmass]

1. That makes 5 US women killed over there

Iraq Coalition Casualties

Army Pfc Analaura Esparza
Army NG Pfc Kristian Parker
Army Spc Alyssa Peterson
Army Sgt Melissa Valles
Army Pfc Lori Piestowa

[VolcanoJen]

2. I had no idea, criticalmass.

From the news reports, you would think that Pvt. Jessica Lynch was the only woman affected by the Bush Doctrine.

Thank you for their names. Thank you for honoring them.

[pfitz59]

3. What happened????????????????

The BFEE hijacked our nation! That's what happened! River Oaks is just across town, why don't you knock on Daddy Dubya's door and ask him?

[sleipnir]

4. So sad,

This is terrible news. It reminds me of a quote, I can't remember the author, I want to say Nabokov, that "the greatest tragedy is the death of a young woman." I believe he means that nothing seems to touch of the soul of society more than a loss of a young woman, and I find this to be true.

My heart goes out to all the rest touched by this horrid war.