Milblog I Love Jet Noise reports that Dunham "told his friends he was planning to extend his enlistment and stay in Iraq for the battalion's entire tour. 'You're crazy for extending,' Lance Cpl. Dean recalls saying.
"'Why?' he says Cpl. Dunham responded. 'I want to make sure everyone makes it home alive. I want to be sure you go home to your wife alive.'"
To which Jet Noise says, "Mission accomplished, Corporal Dunham. Semper Fidelis."
Well. Everyone except himself.
*****
Corporal Dunham was the first American soldier to be killed in Iraq. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, posthumously.
Nothing we can do or say will be sufficient dedication or memorial to such men. Our emotion and eloquence and devotion have but poor power in such a task, and we attempt it only because not to do so would shame us. Fallen heroes are beyond our power to honor or shame.
A nation shames itself when it ignores those who embody its most noble aspects. To falter not from fatigue but petulance, and to fall away from unfinished work -- well, we need not go to the extreme of life and death, of wars and nations, to understand lessons that children should have been taught.
America has fought great and bloody wars, to found and preserve this land of freedom. It seems self-evident that freedom is not granted, but earned, and blessing not guarded are lost. Many nations have been tested and found wanting. It is a mere truism.
Do heroes die in vain? Let it never be said. Heroism is like love. It enriches creation, and it is, in itself, pleasing to God. We owe a debt we can never repay. But striving honestly to reach our potential is a down payment.
Be excellent.
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