Marine Corporal Jeffrey B. Starr, on his third tour of duty in Iraq, died this past May from small-arms fire while conducting combat operations against enemy forces near Ar Ramadi, Iraq.
This past Memorial Day dealt me a blow with which I am strangely unable to deal.
Shortly after rolling my grill out to the front of my house for a neighborhood party in remembrance of the day, I got a call from my sister telling me that her son, my nephew, U.S. Marine Cpl. Jeff Starr, had died as a result of hostile fire while on patrol in Ramadi, Iraq. She asked that I go to be with Jeff’s sister, a medical student about two hours away from San Diego. I was numbed by the call. He was, after all, going to be home in just two weeks.
This was Jeff’s third tour in Iraq; he was there for the battle of Baghdad at the beginning of the war and fought in Fallujah during his second tour. Two weeks ago, he turned 22.
CPL Starr had written a letter to his girlfriend and left it on his computer to be read in the event of his death. Blackfive brought us the story and a copy of the letter a while back.
Marine Corporal Jeffrey B. Starr was featured in the NY Times this past week in a piece about the latest “milestone” in Iraq. You see, CPL Starr was one of those numbers the Times wanted to tell the world about and they did so by publishing a portion of that letter he had written.
Michelle Malkin points out that the times published only a small portion of CPL Starr’s letter…
Sifting through Corporal Starr’s laptop computer after his death, his father found a letter to be delivered to the marine’s girlfriend. ”I kind of predicted this,” Corporal Starr wrote of his own death. ”A third time just seemed like I’m pushing my chances.”
What CPL Starr actually wrote was…
“Obviously if you are reading this then I have died in Iraq. I kind of predicted this, that is why I’m writing this in November. A third time just seemed like I’m pushing my chances. I don’t regret going, everybody dies but few get to do it for something as important as freedom. It may seem confusing why we are in Iraq, it’s not to me. I’m here helping these people, so that they can live the way we live. Not have to worry about tyrants or vicious dictators. To do what they want with their lives. To me that is why I died. Others have died for my freedom, now this is my mark.“
I wonder why the NY Times left out the rest of that paragraph? Seems to me that CPL Starr had some pretty important things to say. There is something seriously rotten at the Times and the rat bastards working there probably can’t even smell it. Sgt Hook out.
Tip to Fred.
Posted by Hook @ 0244 zulu | | Permalink
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