Another Warrior's Life Wasted by that Psychotic Coward.....

[Aviation Pro]

A Loyalty That Extended to the Uniform, and Beyond Subscription required
By GEORGE VECSEY
Manhasset, N.Y.

In August 2003, Jimmy Regan was coaching at a lacrosse camp, on his way to law school after giving up his lucrative first job on Wall Street. Then he surprised people by enlisting in the Army.

His friends assumed he would apply for officer training school, but Regan told his friends, “You know, with my economics degree from Duke, they won’t let me be in the Rangers.”

He went exactly where he wanted to go, first through the rigorous training of a Ranger, then to the dangers of Afghanistan — twice — and Iraq — twice. Yesterday, Jimmy Regan, who was killed Feb. 9 at 26 by a bomb in Iraq, was honored by family, friends and teammates as the ultimate team man.

He had all the perks of a star athlete from the North Shore suburbs who did not have to go anywhere near the military. But something called him into the Ranger uniform, after wearing lacrosse and football uniforms at Chaminade High and a lacrosse uniform at Duke University.

Oh, yes, and for some obscure reason he wore the hated light-blue ballcap of North Carolina, backward, for four years on the Duke campus. That was Jimmy, something of a character. People laughed in church yesterday when they remembered him and his outsized grin, captured forever in his Ranger uniform on the funeral program.It was a terrible day, of parents and sisters and a fiancée burying a loved one, of bagpipers and limousines and a church full of mourners, and, in the cold on busy Northern Boulevard, people left school and malls and medical centers to wave flags.


RLTW.

[graywarrior]

1. Never wasted....ever. But it hurts just the same.

It has to stop.

[Aviation Pro]

2. While Ranger Regan stands a watch at St. Peter's gate....

...and his Ranger buddies, both awarded with CIBs, carry him with heavy hearts, the psychotic, deranged man continues to live in the rarified air of privilege.

I stand by my statement, this warrior hero's life was wasted by that small man.

[patrice]

3. I'm struggling with that word "wasted" too.

These lives are wasted if you say their value lies solely in accomplishing whatever Bush says.
These lives are not wasted if the United States learns from the whole horrible experience and changes in a positive way.

It comes down to your attitudes about authority, thank you John Dean. Are we defined by the president?
Or do we discover and define ourselves?