Steve Milley sat on the couch in the family room of the yellow house on Basswood Avenue, his eyes red from lack of sleep, remembering a son who knew he was going to be a soldier from the time he slid on a pair of camouflage pajamas as a 3-year-old.
Most kids outgrow the Army man thing....
Until they have to find a job after high school.
Sudbury is a picturesque, affluent town that produces some of the best athletes and students in the metropolitan area, and Scott Milley was one of them. He captained the hockey team at Lincoln-Sudbury High. He was an honors student at the University of New Hampshire.
Notice what gets first mention?
Athletics first, intellect second in AmeriKa.
Sudbury isn’t known for producing soldiers. Scott Milley is the town’s first soldier to die in combat since the Vietnam War....
Scott Milley was a bundle of contradictions. Physically and mentally tough, he was afraid of spiders and kept a teddy bear until he went off to college. After his freshman year at UNH, he announced that he would continue in the ROTC program but wouldn’t take his commission as an officer, wanting instead to go into the Army as a grunt.
“We talked him out of that,’’ his father said.
But they couldn’t talk him out of volunteering for combat....
“We tried to deter him,’’ his father said. “What parent wants their son to go off to war? But Scott had a plan, and nothing we could say would change that.’’
Scott’s plan was to join the FBI or the CIA after the Army. He believed the military would best prepare him for that, and so he arrived last month in Baraki Barak, in Logar Province, determined that things there would be better by the time he left. His first words off the plane, seeing the mountains and purple horizon, were, “This place is beautiful.’’
So are the people.
And we have polluted and flattened the place while killing so many of them.
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Related: Sudbury plans wake, funeral for soldier
Sweeping Up the AmeriKan War Dead in Afghanistan
Group works to honor the fallen from Mass.
New England in brief Menino still in hospital after reaction
Did your state lose a soldier in there, New Englander, or was it edited out?
Maybe this will make you all feel better:
"Obama makes secret flight to see troops in Afghanistan; But bad weather stops him from visiting Karzai" by Ben Feller, Associated Press / December 4, 2010
BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan — In a rousing holiday-season visit, President Obama told cheering US troops yesterday in Afghanistan that they are succeeding in their vital mission fighting terrorism. But after he flew in secrecy for 14 hours, foul weather kept him from a meeting in Kabul to address frayed relations with President Hamid Karzai.
What was the carbon footprint on that taxpayer-funded trip?
Obama’s surprise visit to the war zone, his second as president, came 10 days before he will address the nation about a new review of US strategy to defeat the Taliban and strengthen the Afghan government so that US troops can begin leaving next year.
The trip also came at a particularly awkward moment in already strained US relations with Afghanistan because of embarrassing leaked diplomatic cables alleging widespread fraud and underscoring deep concerns about Karzai.
There was no mention of that as the president spoke to more than 3,500 service members packed into a huge hangar....
Obama, who has tripled US troop strength in Afghanistan, has come under increasing pressure to demonstrate progress in the battle that has now gone on more than nine years. In his remarks to the troops, Obama cited “important progress.’’
Translation: when the report comes out and says we have made progress it will once again be a BS political lie.
“We said we were going to break the Taliban’s momentum. And that’s what you’re doing. You’re going on the offense, tired of playing defense, targeting their leaders, pushing them out of their strongholds. Today, we can be proud that there are fewer areas under Taliban control and more Afghans have a chance to build a more hopeful future.’’
I really can't read the man anymore, readers. He makes me ill.
He thanked the troops for their sacrifice “on behalf of more than 300 million Americans.’’
“You give me hope. You give me inspiration. Your resolve shows that Americans will never succumb to fear,’’ he said to cheers and shouts.
Unless the fear is war-mongering, government-generated garbage.
Now step through the scanner, please.
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Update: Suicide bomber kills 4 at Afghan base
