4000 Americans Have Died In Iraq-This Is The True Story Of How 1 Of Them Came Home (Esquire)

[kpete]

SGT. JOE MONTGOMERY

1977-2007

The Things That Carried Him
Four thousand American soldiers have died in Iraq.
This is the true story of how one of them came home.

By Chris Jones

...............

They decided they would take turns carrying Sergeant Montgomery out. Rudberg had a poleless litter in his pack -- a nylon sheet with handles, room for three carriers on each side -- and together the men gathered what they could of Sergeant Montgomery and his belongings. They found his helmet, his nogs, his gun, his pack. But they never found all of him. "We didn't find his ring, either," Gilliland remembered. They laid everything on top of the litter, and they began to push out of the grass.

They stayed off the path, and they all took turns carrying the litter, including Ross, the closest of them to the blast. Everyone kept asking him if he was really all right. "It was such a big explosion, and I didn't get a single scratch," he said. "My ears really hurt, but no one believed me when I said I was okay."

The handles of the litter dug into their hands. Only Gilliland refused to be spelled. "I never let go of the litter," he said. "I just couldn't do it."

When he wasn't carrying Sergeant Montgomery, Ross put his arm around his friend. "We just kept walking," he said.

No one spoke.

Some of them were in shock.

All of them were covered in blood.

amazing (long) more at:
http://www.esquire.com/features/things-that-carried-him-10

[TomInTib]

1. "holding their salutes all the while as the birds flew away"

"The last time the platoon saw Sergeant Montgomery was later that morning, at first light. It was Wednesday, May 23. They all came out of their barracks to see the helicopters land. And these sleepless young men, from Colorado, from Pennsylvania, from Washington, they took hold of the poles of the stretcher, three on each side, with their friend from Indiana between them, zipped up inside a black bag tucked under a green Army blanket, and they carried him into one of the Black Hawks, and they watched them lift off into the dawn and dust, and they saluted then, saluted the start of one journey and the end of another, holding their salutes all the while as the birds flew away, until they were gone over the horizon."

[kdmorris]

2. That is so heartbreaking n/t

[trof]

3. So sad.

Bookmarked site to finish reading later.
Damn.
K&R