Published: Sunday, August 22, 2010
It's time to remember veterans, as war winds down
Sixty-five years to the week after V-J Day -- Aug. 14, 1945 -- the last full U.S. combat brigade in Iraq left that country.
Celebrations? On Thursday, there were hugs for soldiers returning to Joint Base Lewis-McChord. For most of us, it was just another summer day.
What a stark contrast to the historical images of V-J Day, when Americans first learned of the Japanese surrender that would end World War II.
On that landmark day, despite fresh memories of enormous sacrifice, thousands of revelers packed New York's Times Square. A Life magazine photographer, Alfred Eisenstaedt, snapped the iconic picture of a sailor kissing a nurse. Now an indelible national memory, that photo captured the day's relief and optimism.
Today, more than seven years after the start of the war in Iraq, combat operations there are officially over. According to The Associated Press, the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division was designated the last combat brigade to leave Iraq. Its last members moved across the border into Kuwait Thursday, beating President Barack Obama's Aug. 31 deadline for ending combat operations.
Of course we are thankful, and hopeful for a beginning of the end -- of any war. It's no surprise, though, that any celebration is muted by knowing that more than 52,000 other U.S. troops remain in Iraq. And Iraq's troubles are undoubtedly not over.
Late last week, I couldn't help but think of all the people from our area touched deeply by the war in Iraq. Some I met and wrote about in the years between the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and now. Others, I only read about. I saw a few shed tears for the precious ones they lost.
This past Memorial Day, Shellie Starr of Snohomish wrote a piece for The Herald's Opinion page that spoke eloquently of her son, Marine Cpl. Jeffrey Starr. He was killed in Ramadi, Iraq, on May 30, 2005.
"Wherever you may be," Starr wrote, "take a moment to remember these heroes of the past and present, and to lift up in prayer the moms and dads and extended families left behind."
Yes, take a moment now. Let us forget neither the ones who didn't make it home, nor those now coming back.
During those years of combat, I was moved by the subjects of many local stories about the war in Iraq. In Marysville, Dexter Holmes whittled and prayed as his son, Army Spec. Brent Holmes, served in the 1st Battalion (Airborne) 4th Brigade combat team.
At Everett's Jackson Elementary School, students had a penpal in Iraq, Army 1st Lt. Morgan Wolff, whose family lived in Arlington.
An Everett dentist, Dr. Eric Bowles, had to temporarily close his office while serving in Iraq with the Washington National Guard 81st Brigade's 181st Support Battalion. He spent much of his time there at Camp Anaconda in Iraq's Sunni Triangle, a hotbed of the insurgency.
Army National Guard Sgt. Josh Jurovcik was on his second tour in Iraq when his wife, Mary Kay, gave birth to their daughter, Aubree Jean. With the help of a webcam and an Internet connection, he was able to see his baby girl at Providence Regional Medical Center Everett's Pavilion for Women and Children.
With her daughter Army Spec. Angela Hill-Espinoza in Iraq, Brenda Skylstad of Edmonds kept busy shipping hundreds of pounds of items -- cocoa packets, snacks and baby wipes -- to her daughter's unit, part of an engineering company based at Fort Lewis.
And Michael Reagan, an Edmonds artist, toiled year after year to sketch portraits of Americans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Multiply these stories, and so many like them, by hundreds of American cities and towns. Combat in Iraq reached out all over this country. Servicemen and women and their families shouldered heavy burdens.
It isn't over. Last week, 61 Iraqi army recruits were killed in a suicide bombing. It isn't time for celebrations in the streets, not yet.
It is time to remember, and to give thanks.
As Army Spc. Rodrigo Diaz told The Associated Press on Thursday at his homecoming to Joint Base Lewis-McChord, "It's a very big deal."
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
Celebrations? On Thursday, there were hugs for soldiers returning to Joint Base Lewis-McChord. For most of us, it was just another summer day.
What a stark contrast to the historical images of V-J Day, when Americans first learned of the Japanese surrender that would end World War II.
On that landmark day, despite fresh memories of enormous sacrifice, thousands of revelers packed New York's Times Square. A Life magazine photographer, Alfred Eisenstaedt, snapped the iconic picture of a sailor kissing a nurse. Now an indelible national memory, that photo captured the day's relief and optimism.
Today, more than seven years after the start of the war in Iraq, combat operations there are officially over. According to The Associated Press, the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division was designated the last combat brigade to leave Iraq. Its last members moved across the border into Kuwait Thursday, beating President Barack Obama's Aug. 31 deadline for ending combat operations.
Of course we are thankful, and hopeful for a beginning of the end -- of any war. It's no surprise, though, that any celebration is muted by knowing that more than 52,000 other U.S. troops remain in Iraq. And Iraq's troubles are undoubtedly not over.
Late last week, I couldn't help but think of all the people from our area touched deeply by the war in Iraq. Some I met and wrote about in the years between the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and now. Others, I only read about. I saw a few shed tears for the precious ones they lost.
This past Memorial Day, Shellie Starr of Snohomish wrote a piece for The Herald's Opinion page that spoke eloquently of her son, Marine Cpl. Jeffrey Starr. He was killed in Ramadi, Iraq, on May 30, 2005.
"Wherever you may be," Starr wrote, "take a moment to remember these heroes of the past and present, and to lift up in prayer the moms and dads and extended families left behind."
Yes, take a moment now. Let us forget neither the ones who didn't make it home, nor those now coming back.
During those years of combat, I was moved by the subjects of many local stories about the war in Iraq. In Marysville, Dexter Holmes whittled and prayed as his son, Army Spec. Brent Holmes, served in the 1st Battalion (Airborne) 4th Brigade combat team.
At Everett's Jackson Elementary School, students had a penpal in Iraq, Army 1st Lt. Morgan Wolff, whose family lived in Arlington.
An Everett dentist, Dr. Eric Bowles, had to temporarily close his office while serving in Iraq with the Washington National Guard 81st Brigade's 181st Support Battalion. He spent much of his time there at Camp Anaconda in Iraq's Sunni Triangle, a hotbed of the insurgency.
Army National Guard Sgt. Josh Jurovcik was on his second tour in Iraq when his wife, Mary Kay, gave birth to their daughter, Aubree Jean. With the help of a webcam and an Internet connection, he was able to see his baby girl at Providence Regional Medical Center Everett's Pavilion for Women and Children.
With her daughter Army Spec. Angela Hill-Espinoza in Iraq, Brenda Skylstad of Edmonds kept busy shipping hundreds of pounds of items -- cocoa packets, snacks and baby wipes -- to her daughter's unit, part of an engineering company based at Fort Lewis.
And Michael Reagan, an Edmonds artist, toiled year after year to sketch portraits of Americans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Multiply these stories, and so many like them, by hundreds of American cities and towns. Combat in Iraq reached out all over this country. Servicemen and women and their families shouldered heavy burdens.
It isn't over. Last week, 61 Iraqi army recruits were killed in a suicide bombing. It isn't time for celebrations in the streets, not yet.
It is time to remember, and to give thanks.
As Army Spc. Rodrigo Diaz told The Associated Press on Thursday at his homecoming to Joint Base Lewis-McChord, "It's a very big deal."
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
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