I think the difference is the personal nature. When it is someone close, when it is someone that we know, when we see the faces of the deceased….we feel a pain that is so strong, so painful that it is difficult to cope with our innermost feelings.

Is it just me that thinks….whether we know the people, or whether we don’t….each death is a human being, someone that is loved, someone whose life we should treasure.

With the availability of global news, we should never forget that death will always be personal and reach out and help the world grieve.

{photo from iStockphoto}

Post from: Widows Quest

“A US soldier has been withdrawn from Iraq after his two brothers were killed in action, echoing the Oscar-winning film “Saving Private Ryan”, it was reported Friday.

Jason Hubbard, 33, will return to his family’s home in northern California after younger brother Nathan, 21, was one of 14 soldiers killed in a Black Hawk helicopter crash in northern Iraq on Wednesday.

The death came three years after a roadside bombing claimed the life of another sibling, Jared, 22, in Fallujah in 2004, reports said.

Jason was withdrawn under the military’s “sole survivor” policy aimed at preventing parents losing all of their children to war.

The case bears a striking similarity to Steven Spielberg’s 1998 film about a mission to recover a soldier from northern France after all his brothers are killed during the D-Day landings.

“Art imitates life, and unfortunately sometimes life imitates art,” an army official who asked not to be identified told AFP.

Jason Hubbard had been travelling in another helicopter accompanying the Black Hawk chopper which crashed on Wednesday, according to reports…..

A priest and family friend, Tim Rolen, said the Hubbard family was struggling to come to terms with the tragedy.

“The word I would not use is destroyed. This is a family with strong ties, strong connections. It won’t destroy them, but it will get them about as close as you can get to that,” he told the Fresno Bee newspaper….Later that year he had signed up along with elder brother Jason, a former policeman. The brothers’ mother said she believed Jason had joined to protect his younger brother. In an interview shortly before his deployment to Iraq, Nathan said he was unfazed by the risk he could be killed.

“People are going to be hurt, and people are going to be killed,” he said. That is the reality you have to accept, but not dwell on.

“If I worried about dying … I would live too cautious, and I want to live a very great life,” he said.”

 How telling that last phrase, maybe hero Nathan had it right…we never know how long we have in this world and living it to the full is all we can do…god bless the family.

Post from: Widows Quest

 The whole world, all religions are suffering loss and I can only imagine the level of pain across the world. You would think as humans, as people we should be able to find a way of living together rather than dying together.

Post from: Widows Quest

“At least 700,000 children have had a parent deployed overseas, but there are scant resources for the stressed kids who are exhibiting social, emotional, behavioral and academic problems.

Nearly 50 percent of troops killed in Iraq have left spouses and children behind, but there are precious few programs offering grief counseling for Gold Star families. Support for family members acting as primary caretakers for their severely injured veterans, including those with polytraumas and traumatic brain injury, is virtually non-existent.

Since 2001, 160,000 female troops have been deployed, and 10 percent of them are single mothers. Women combat veterans are at an elevated risk for PTSD, and often suffer military sexual abuse. But the VA has just two gender-specific in-patient treatment programs.”

The article continues saying that “the untreated effects of combat-related trauma last a lifetime, and long-term consequences include: unemployment, depression, divorce, domestic violence, chemical dependency, poor physical health, homelessness, “accidental death,” suicide and even murder. “

I understand the effect of bereavement and don’t know what I would have done without the support of family and friends. We spend billions on defense budgets, surely we should be spending a little of that on supporting society through the effects of the war.

Post from: Widows Quest

 

- As of Thursday, July 5, 2007, at least 3,591 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes seven military civilians. At least 2,951 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military’s numbers.

The striking part for me is that 1,000 were not due to hostile action – for anyone reading this blog who has lost someone, my heart goes out to you.

Post from: Widows Quest

To bring this home – yesterday, the BBC wrote about the latest funeral

The widow and the two sons of a “great soldier” killed by mortar fire in Iraq led more than 800 mourners at his military funeral in Hampshire.

Maj Paul Harding, of the 4th Battalion The Rifles, was killed less than a month after he was deployed to Basra.

His widow Paula, and sons Christopher, 19, and Jake, 17, led the funeral procession at Winchester Cathedral.

He was so strong, so strong, I thought he was invincible Paula Harding, widow

The service on Friday included a eulogy by colleague and friend, former Maj Nick Haddock, who spoke of Maj Harding’s “selfless” devotion to both his family and to his duty.

He said: “With a gentle manner and a disarming honesty, he touched so many lives and he died where he was always to be found, leading from the front.”

On the night before the Army commander died, he placed himself in the centre’s most exposed fortified position to help secure the route in for a re-supply convoy from the Basra Palace base.

The 48-year-old was hit by a mortar round and died instantly on 20 June.

Post from: Widows Quest

Grief is an extremely powerful emotion, but what must it be like to be waving your loved one off – not knowing if you will see them again.

The cycle of grief applies here as well, and takes enormous courage to live with on a day to day basis. I suppose belief is the key word

Belief in your love for each other

Belief that are doing what they believe in

Belief that they will come home

Belief that if they don’t then you will find the same courage that they showed to pull through the loss.

 My belief – that the relatives and the armed forces have one of the strongest courages of all.

Post from: Widows Quest