As the United States continues its Long War against the axis of petroleum-fueled warlords, the USS Kearsarge trains for another tour in the Middle East and a wife mourns her fallen husband.
The USS Kearsarge is an Amphibious Assault Ship, really a converted aircraft carrier, that is “designed to put troops on hostile shores.” As Rear Adm. Garry Hall tells Bob McManus: “There’s no beach beyond our reach.”
It’s a ship with over a thousand sailors and 2,000 marines, and the crew is holding up “amazingly well” according to Hall.
But this Memorial Day, writes Jennifer Fermino, Sharon Engeldrum is getting ready to celebrate the first birthday of her daughter Kristian, who was born seven months after her husband, National Guardsman Christian Engeldrum was killed in an ambush in Iraq.
The widow said her heart breaks every time she hears of another casualty in Iraq and Afghanistan - which means another family shattered.
"It's hard, absolutely," she said.
Sharon is participating in Memorial Day celebrations in Washington DC, which this year will be the first year that the parade will honor the GIs returning from the war on terror.
Later today, Sharon said, she'll lay flowers on the Arlington National Cemetery grave of her husband, whom she met in 1983 when he worked at a Bronx gas station.
And so the nation honors those who serve and those who have fallen. And it also honors those who have lost their loved ones in the nation’s service.
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