Yesterday our Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) teams responded, as they do nearly every day, to a possible vehicle-based improvised explosive device outside the wire. Unlike most of us at Sather, the 447 CE/EOD routinely enters bad-guy land to disable or explode-in-place the many IEDs and caches found every day.
Except this time something went wrong, and three of our airmen died when the car bomb detonated. They were people I'd eaten with in the DFAC, worked out with at the gym, and seen around the base. Gone, in an instant. They died protecting fellow soldiers, sailors, and airmen along with the people of Iraq.
The Patriot Detail last night was somber and well-attended as over a hundred personnel sent them home with honor. The aircrew took a little extra time sweeping out the compartment, and a US flag hung above it all. Afterwards, small groups of airmen clustered around the back of the aircraft comforting each other and silently contemplating the caskets.
Please pray for their families at home and the friends and comrades they left behind. As the President has said, "The battle is now joined on many fronts. We will not waver; we will not tire; we will not falter; and we will not fail." Those words are still true to those of us serving in the military.
I'll leave you with the bible passage I've heard the chaplain quote (too) many times in the back of a C-130 loaded with a flag-draped casket, "Your righteousness reaches to the skies, O God, you who have done great things. Who, O God, is like you? Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again; from the depths of the earth you will again bring me up. You will increase my honor and comfort me once again. (Psalm 71:19-21)"
