WP, pg1: On a Hot, Dusty Road, a Young Soldier's Last Battle

[DeepModem Mom]

On a Hot and Dusty Road, A Young Soldier's Last Battle

By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, June 23, 2004; Page A01


FORWARD OPERATING BASE GABE, Iraq, June 22 -- Army Pfc. Jason N. Lynch was taking his one-hour shift behind a Humvee-mounted .50-caliber machine gun when the AK-47s started crackling again, just before dusk. As he responded by raking the source of enemy fire, sticking his head and torso out the roof to aim, a single 7.62mm round found a mortal opening just below Lynch's body armor and ripped into his right side.

Lynch, 21, a 6-foot-2 St. Croix islander who reveled in reggae music and yearned to return to his Caribbean home, immediately slumped down into the Humvee, his comrades in Charlie Battery recalled, and he shouted out to no one in particular: "Ah! I'm hit." Those words -- uttered Friday at 6:50 p.m. in Buhriz, a rebellious, date-growing village about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad -- were the last they heard him say.

Although medics struggled to save his life, the internal bleeding was massive, they said, and Lynch swiftly went into shock. Within an hour, the young soldier had joined the slowly but relentlessly growing list of American troops killed in the occupation of Iraq.

Of the 842 U.S. service members who have died in Iraq since the invasion 15 months ago, 622 were killed by hostile fire, according to a Pentagon tally. The largest part of that combat death toll, 513, has come since President Bush's declaration on May 1 last year that major combat was over. These troops died at the hands of Iraqis and a sprinkling of foreign Arabs fighting the U.S. occupation and seeking to derail the Bush administration's plan to transform the country....

(This lenghty and moving piece of war reporting, goes on to tell the story of one soldier, his death in Iraq, and its aftermath.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61955-2004Jun22.html

[Justice]

1. A very moving, sad story

There are 841 others equally moving and sad. Bout time someone started telling them on page A01.