Last Vigil

[RPankn]

On the eve of the funeral, Katherine insisted on sleeping next to Jim's body, so the Marines arranged a bed and offered to stand guard through the night. She fell asleep to music she and Jim had planned to play at their formal wedding celebration when he returned.


www.time.com/time/photoessays/iraq_war_families/1.html

[RPankn]

Around the Clock
At his home in Aurora, Colorado, Maj. Steve Beck, site commander of Marine Air Control Squadron 23 at Buckley Air Force Base, hugs his wife Julie before leaving at 2 a.m. to conduct a casualty notification. "If it was your son," he says, "would you want us to let you sleep?"




The Journey Home
Marines unload the body of 2nd Lieut. Jim Cathey, 24, from a commercial flight to Reno, Nevada, as passengers watch.

[RPankn]

Grief Catcher
Clinging to Beck, Katherine Cathey of Brighton, Colorado, breaks down at the sight of the coffin of her husband Jim, a second lieutenant killed by a booby trap in Al Karmah. She cursed Beck when he arrived and wouldn't speak to him for an hour. But by the time they reached the airport, she wouldn't let go.




Final Farewell
Katherine Cathey weeps on her husband's casket at the Reno airport as Major Beck comforts her. She clung to it for several minutes, refusing to move. "I know Jim's going to be with me in so many ways," she said later. "And there will be so many people who will teach his son about his father"

[RPankn]

A Father's Lesson
Jim Cathey's father, Jeff, hugs a Marine as his son's funeral nears. "Someone asked me what I learned from my son," he said. "He taught me you need more than one friend"




Step by Step
Beck takes the effects of Lance Corporal Kyle Burns, killed in a fire fight in Fallujah, to parents Bob and Jo in Laramie, Wyo.

[RPankn]

Honor
Jo thanks Beck after accepting her son Kyle's medals.

[karpomrx]

"[American leaders] are perhaps not so much immoral as they are amoral. It's not that they take pleasure in so much death and suffering. It's that they just don't care...the same that could be said about a sociopath. As long as the death and suffering advance the agenda of the empire, as long as the right people and the right corporations gain wealth and power and priviledge, as long as the death and suffering aren't happening to them or people close to them...then they just don't care about it happening to other people, including the American soldiers whom they throw into wars and who come home-the ones who make it back alive- with Agent Orange or Gulf War Syndrome eating away at their bodies. American leaders would not be in the positions they hold if they were bothered by such things."- William Blum

[Moses]

Case in point: Sen. John McCain, who said on Sunday that Rep. Murtha was getting sentimental in his old age and was caring too much about his dead constituents.

[Moses]

Marines: Why do you allow the US Marines to be used as a mercenary force for a handful of rich political fundraisers? Why do you allow your fellow Marines to be killed for this?

Topple the fundraisers and bring your fellow Marines home!