a commander who is not afraid to pay his respects

picture: Eros Hoagland for The New York Times

Colonel Sutherland and his brigade chaplain, Maj. Charlie Fenton, have taken it on themselves to visit every dead and badly wounded soldier in the 5,000-strong unit, the Third Brigade Combat Team of the First Cavalry Division

unlike another commander in chief who does NOT visist the families of the dead NOR attend ONE funeral of those he sent to their deaths

colonel sutherland and major fenton are special. they have hearts and souls. they suffer. they feel, THEY KNOW THEY ACHE

i cried all throughout this article. i cannot imagine .... i just can't

A Salute for His Wounded, a Last Touch for His Dead

By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
Published: April 2, 2007
BAQUBA, Iraq, March 31 — In the last moments of his life, Sgt. First Class Benjamin L. Sebban saw the flatbed truck speed into the concertina wire guarding his small Army patrol base near Baquba.
Everybody get down! Get down!” he screamed. Soldiers dropped to the ground.
A combination of the strong wire and muddy gravel stopped the bomber, who then detonated explosives packed into the truck bed. A 50-foot-wide fireball enveloped the base, an L-shaped school that weeks earlier had served as an insurgent hide-out. Soldiers were slammed into walls and windows, they later recalled, battered by pieces of brick and glass turned into shrapnel......

...............At almost precisely the same time another helicopter landed in Baquba. It carried Col. David Sutherland, commander of the American combat brigade in Diyala Province. He was returning from the large military base in Balad, where he had visited wounded soldiers and gone to the morgue, where he saluted and then prayed as he placed his hands on a long black body bag containing the body of a military policeman killed that day by a sniper in Baquba.
It had been a long day for Colonel Sutherland and his brigade chaplain, Maj. Charlie Fenton, who have taken it on themselves to visit every dead and badly wounded soldier in the 5,000-strong unit, the Third Brigade Combat Team of the First Cavalry Division.......

..............For some, grief is compounded because they feel no one back home grasps the perils they endure. “We’ve just got a lot of guys dying,” said one combat soldier who did not want his name published. “This country is not getting any better. Nobody really understands what’s going on.”.........

(i want to answer that soldier by saying, you're right. i am not there. i DON'T know what is going on. i will NEVER stop thinking of you and your fellow troops though. no matter what sort of news comes out of iraq, I KNOW IT'S NOT EASY being there. i know it's dangerous. i know it's a foreign culture. i know it's NOT getting any better)