Terri
04-27-2003, 12:48 AM
In Troops' Final Words, Faith and Grace
By Laura Blumenfeld and Julie Tate
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, April 27, 2003
One soldier wrote to his mother: Send more M&Ms. Another scribbled hello to his Nanny and Pop-pop. A Marine asked his girlfriend to tie a yellow ribbon in her hair. A reservist told his sister that if he didn't make it back, please read Rudyard Kipling's "If" at the funeral.
The soldiers didn't know that these messages would be among their last. They dealt mostly with the mundane -- the blood blisters, the tent mice, the sand that crunched between their teeth. They congratulated Dad on his new heifer and praised Sister's cheerleading. But they were young men preparing for battle, awkwardly caught between imagined futures and an abrupt end. And so they made sure to say the things that needed to be said, to thank, to explain, to apologize and, most urgently, to love. They came from diverse backgrounds, yet a common theme runs through their writing. They died believing in their families, in the president or in their God. Rarely bitter and with scant bloodlust, they were men of faith.
Full Story (http://www.washingtonpost.c om/wp-dyn/articles/A42604-2003Apr26.html)
By Laura Blumenfeld and Julie Tate
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, April 27, 2003
One soldier wrote to his mother: Send more M&Ms. Another scribbled hello to his Nanny and Pop-pop. A Marine asked his girlfriend to tie a yellow ribbon in her hair. A reservist told his sister that if he didn't make it back, please read Rudyard Kipling's "If" at the funeral.
The soldiers didn't know that these messages would be among their last. They dealt mostly with the mundane -- the blood blisters, the tent mice, the sand that crunched between their teeth. They congratulated Dad on his new heifer and praised Sister's cheerleading. But they were young men preparing for battle, awkwardly caught between imagined futures and an abrupt end. And so they made sure to say the things that needed to be said, to thank, to explain, to apologize and, most urgently, to love. They came from diverse backgrounds, yet a common theme runs through their writing. They died believing in their families, in the president or in their God. Rarely bitter and with scant bloodlust, they were men of faith.
Full Story (http://www.washingtonpost.c om/wp-dyn/articles/A42604-2003Apr26.html)