Elizabeth Sullivan: War Hits Home in Pockets of Pain

[marmar]

from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, via CommonDreams:


Published on Sunday, January 21, 2007 by the Cleveland Plain Dealer (Ohio)
War Hits Home in Pockets of Pain
by Elizabeth Sullivan

Suzanne Anderson knows a lot about sacrifice. Soon, after she buries her husband and re-bonds with their 3-year-old daughter in Kansas, she will have to decide whether to return to Mosul, Iraq.

Mosul is where Anderson and her husband, Ian, a 22-year-old sergeant, were serving in the same Army unit when Ian and three others were killed by a roadside bomb Monday.

Graduates of Irving High School in Irving, Texas, near Dallas, know something about sacrifice, too.

At least three of their classmates have died in Iraq since 2004.

The most recent was Sgt. Paul T. Sanchez, killed last Sunday in Baghdad on his second combat tour, also by a roadside bomb.

Anderson and Sanchez join more than 3,300 other Americans who have made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq, Afghanistan and the other outposts of the post-9/11 wars.

The family and friends of Andrea Parhamovich in Lake County also now grapple with the pain of sacrifice.

Their loved one, a 1996 Perry High grad, so full of passion and commitment, was killed Wednesday in Baghdad while on democracy duty for this nation. Parhamovich was part of a convoy of civilians traveling beyond the safety of the Green Zone when it was ambushed by Sunni insurgents.

She was working for the National Democratic Institute when she died. She and the three security contractors killed with her join at least 377 other civilians killed in the cause of Iraqi rebuilding, according to the icasualties.org Web site.

Their loved ones all know the meaning of sacrifice.

Yet those who survive Iraq duty also sacrifice.

They sacrifice their comrades, their peace of mind, their ability to bond with loved ones back home.

Seventy-six percent of all U.S. soldiers who have served in Iraq know someone killed or maimed by a roadside bomb, according to Army surveys cited by the Christian Science Monitor.

More than one-fourth of the 650,000 soldiers who have cycled through Iraq have done more than one tour.

And the incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder rises 50 percent after the second combat tour, the Monitor reports. ......(more)

The rest of the piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0121-21.htm

[JohnnyLib2]

1. A tragic glimpse of the human costs

of this folly. RIP and may these survivors eventually, finally, find some peace of mind.