The memorial was held for Sgt. Murray, SPC Lane, and SPC Shelton, on September 14. It was a good service but I don’t think it gave us the closure that we thought it would. The memorial was videoed and will be sent to the families of the fallen. 2nd platoon will never be the same without those men. Quite honestly anyone that was touched by them will never be the same. Days move forward and time moves on and I know that they would want us to carry on. We have 8 months left in this place and have to take them just one day at a time. We have been out on 2 missions since September 4th. Our first mission was a night raid to go get some grimy terrorist known for smuggling things into and out of a well known country that harbors terrorists, and assists the insurgents in their fight against us and Iraqi security forces. 1st Platoon was the main effort and we were the outer cordon. I was not alone feeling uneasy on the drive to the target house. My men and I lead out for our element, though 1st Platoon led the way there. We drove to the point where we split off and my driver hauled ass to the backside of the building to prevent the bad guy from running away. We immediately dismounted and sealed off the back of the block while 1st entered the house and grabbed the guy. We mounted up and moved out; we made it back to Rusty without incident. It was good to get outside the wire again.
Our next mission was one where I think we were all agreed that it was well not worth the trip. Ours is not to question but to do. My men and I lead out to our first destination, if it’s going to happen it’s gonna happen, but we will not let these fuckers intimidate us. We drove up the route that had taken our brothers only a week before, we made a right turn onto a different road and we all stared up the road before we made the turn looking as if to catch a glimpse of the sight that had changed everybody’s life on that fateful September day. It was only 300m up the road but it was well out of eye sight. We made it to our first destination, waited for the Commander to finish his meeting. We then rolled out to our second objective. A place we had been before looking for someone who supposedly did something, my men and I had actually searched the house before but someone was not convinced that there was nothing in the house. My men dismounted a block from the target house and moved to the gate. We entered and cleared the home and searched it for a second time, and for a second time found nothing. 1st Platoon lead out on the way back to Rusty, another mission down and one more day closer to the end of another month.
Thank you to everyone that continues to support us, Sgt Murray, SPC Lane, SPC Shelton, SPC Crookston, and SPC Mixson. Thank you for your prayers and your words of support. I would like to say thank you to two organizations that are really amazing and that’s Books for Soldier’s and Soldier’s Angels. These programs are outstanding, I had gotten a letter from a rep from BFS, she had actually sent me the last book I received and also reads the blog. BFS put the names of our fallen on there memorial site and she knew their names not just from here but from them having used BFS. Soldier’s Angels is also a fantastic support system for Soldiers and I know that they contacted another member in the Platoon about Crookston and Mixson and wanted to send their support to their families and also the families of the fallen soldiers. If any of you are interested in volunteering for one of these great organizations, simply Google the website and check it out. BFS how it works for us is we send in a request for a book, or movie, or video game and BFS gets our request and then within 2 weeks you receive what ever you ordered. Soldiers Angels as far as I know they have different teams, letter writing and volunteers that send packages to soldiers. If one of our guys isn’t getting any mail we send his name and address in and the volunteers from Soldier’s Angel’s will send him letters, and packages.
I also googled the names of the fallen and I came across some memorial websites for them if you would like to check them out.
http://joel-murray.memory-of.com/
http://legacy.com/BayCity/Soldier/Story.aspx?Page=FSStory&PersonID=94069787
http://legacy.com/GB/GuestBookView.aspx?PersonID=94069782
http://legacy.com/GB/GuestBookView.aspx?PersonID=94069786
Thank you again.
Ruark OUT!!!
