June 1, 2006

A Must Read from Iraq.

Trevor at Will To Exist writes this excellent post about the aftermath of the murders of CBS News cameraman and soundman Paul Douglas and James Brolan, it is a must read.

The detritus of lives extinguished...

As I was making my rounds today carrying out the mundane but highly technical tasks of a REMF, I chanced upon the camera gear that represents a physical connection to the last few moments of the lives of Paul Douglas and James Brolan. Their shattered equipment, which they used to record and report events in Iraq, lay broken and twisted on the floor, covered in specks of blood and pierced in various places by the shrapnel that always accompanies an IED’s concussive force in the milliseconds after the triggerman sets it off.

I do not know what ran through their minds in their last moments on this earth, but I hope they found comfort in whatever faiths they may have practiced. Death hasn’t touched me much on this deployment. The deaths of these two men did, because I had shared the same air they breathed on more than one occasion. They were observers, not combatants. They were human beings who hoped for better days for the nation and people of Iraq. They did not deserve to die.
(read it all)

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