Joshua J. Frazier, 24,

of Spotsylvania, Va.; sergeant, Marine Corps. Frazier was killed by a sniper Tuesday in Ramadi, west of Baghdad. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

Milton A. Gist Jr., 27,

of St. Louis; sergeant, Army. Gist was one of two soldiers killed Jan. 30 when a roadside bomb exploded near their vehicle in Ramadi, west of Baghdad. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 77th Armor Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division in Schweinfurt, Germany.

Kevin C. Landeck, 26,

of Wheaton, Ill.; captain, Army. Landeck was one of two soldiers killed Feb. 2 when a roadside bomb exploded near their vehicle in Baghdad. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 15th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division at Ft. Drum, N.Y.

Randy J. Matheny, 20,

of McCook, Neb.; sergeant, Army National Guard. Matheny was killed Feb. 4 when a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle in Baghdad. He was assigned to the 1074th Transportation Company in Sidney, Neb.

Alan E. McPeek, 20,

of Tucson; specialist, Army. McPeek was one of two soldiers killed Feb. 2 when their unit was attacked with small-arms fire in Ramadi, west of Baghdad. He was assigned to the 16th Engineer Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division in Giessen, Germany.

Gilbert Minjares Jr., 31,

of El Paso; petty officer first class, Navy. Minjares was among seven troops killed Wednesday when a Marine CH-46 helicopter crashed northwest of Baghdad. He was assigned to Marine Aircraft Group 14, 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing in Cherry Point, N.C.

Jennifer M. Parcell, 20,

of Bel Air, Md.; corporal, Marine Corps. Parcell was killed in combat Wednesday in Al Anbar province, west of Baghdad. She was assigned to Combat Logistics Regiment 3, 3rd Marine Logistics Group, 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force in Okinawa, Japan.

(continued below)

Richard O. Quill III, 22,

of Roswell, Ga.; corporal, Marine Corps. Quill died Feb. 1 of a nonhostile-related cause in Al Anbar province, west of Baghdad. No further information was released. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton.

Manuel A. Ruiz, 21

of Federalsburg, Md.; petty officer third class, Navy. Ruiz was among seven troops killed Wednesday when a Marine CH-46 helicopter crashed northwest of Baghdad. He was assigned to the 2nd Medical Battalion, 2nd Marine Logistics Group, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

Ronnie L. Sanders, 26,

of Thibodaux, La.; staff sergeant, Army. Sanders was killed Feb. 3 when a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle in Taji, north of Baghdad. He was assigned to the 407th Brigade Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division at Ft. Bragg, N.C.

Eric R. Sieger, 18,

of Layton, Utah; specialist, Army. Sieger was killed Feb. 1 when his Bradley fighting vehicle overturned in Buhriz, northeast of Baghdad. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division at Ft. Hood, Texas.

Brandon J. Van Parys, 20,

of New Tripoli, Pa.; lance corporal, Marine Corps. Van Parys was killed Monday by a rocket-propelled grenade in Al Anbar province, west of Baghdad. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

Keith Yoakum, 41,

of Hemet; chief warrant officer, Army. Yoakum was one of two soldiers killed Feb. 2 when their Apache helicopter crashed in Taji, north of Baghdad. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 227th Aviation Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division at Ft. Hood, Texas.

Matthew T. Zeimer, 18,

of Glendive, Mont.; private, Army. Zeimer was one of two soldiers killed Feb. 2 when their unit was attacked with small-arms fire in Ramadi, west of Baghdad. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division at Ft. Stewart, Ga.

Army Pfc. Michael C. Balsley, 23,

Hayward, CA; After three months in Iraq, Iraq, Army Pfc. Balsley was on patrol east of Baghdad when a roadside bomb exploded near his Humvee. He was killed in the explosion along with Army Sgt. Alexander H. Fuller, 21, of Centerville, Mass. They are among 81 soldiers from the same brigade combat team to die in Iraq.

Memorial from Los Angeles Times:

Army Pfc. Michael Christopher Balsley walked and talked like his father, a Vietnam veteran who would tell war stories and watch military movies with his young sons. For Halloween when he was 4, Balsley dressed as GI Joe with his father's patches sewn on by his mother.

A few years out of high school, Balsley became an Army cavalry scout, a tough assignment on the front lines of combat. His father asked him why.

"I guess I want my own war stories, Dad," Balsley replied.

"I have seen what combat can do," said Balsley's father, Jim, 59. "But even though I encouraged my sons to do what they wanted to do, I had an immense fear of what would happen to Michael. And that came true."

Born June 30, 1983, Balsley grew up in Hayward, Calif., a middle-class town that hugs the rolling East Bay hills south of Oakland's gritty urban plain.

Michael Balsley was a fairly poor student at Mount Eden High School, his father said, and he got into mischief but after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks Balsley wanted to join the military.

"He was real quiet," his father said of the day that he enlisted. "Michael didn't get quiet very much. I asked him what was going on, and I believe he said, 'That's a hell of a thing to do.' "

After his basic training at Ft. Knox, Ky., the Army dispatched Balsley to the demilitarized zone in South Korea. He spent a year there and wanted to stay. "He kind of liked Korea. I don't think he wanted to come back," his father said. "He had an opportunity to extend his tour, but he said he messed up his paperwork."

During basic training, Balsley met his future wife, Samantha. While he was in South Korea, they e-mailed each other and were married when he returned to the states. On her MySpace.com page after he died, Samantha wrote: "I know you will wait for me forever. I love you, Michael."

The Army sent Balsley to California for desert warfare training at Ft. Irwin, near Barstow. By October, he was in Iraq with the 3rd Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division based at Ft. Carson, Colo., where his wife and 1-year-old stepson, Logan, now live.

Before he shipped out for Iraq, the Balsley family in California became involved with Operation: MOM in nearby Castro Valley, a support group for military families. Balsley's mother, Beverly, 56, who is an elementary school cafeteria worker, said she came from a military family and is a "sucker for patriotic music."

She said she wanted to get involved in the group after attending a Memorial Day service around the time her son signed his paperwork to join the Army. She remembers thinking about a mother who had lost her son: "How do you do this? How do you get through this?"

Jim Balsley said he wants his son to be remembered as a patriot. "Michael was a real person," he said. "Michael was not just another name in the newspaper about another fallen hero defending the United States. Michael was a real individual."

Marine Lance Cpl. Ryan Mayhan, 25,

Hawthorne, CA; a gunner on a Humvee, he was one of two Marines killed Dec. 21 when a roadside bomb exploded near their vehicle in Al Anbar province, west of Baghdad. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in Twentynine Palms, Calif.

Memorial from Los Angeles Times:

Marine Lance Cpl. Ryan Mayhan survived his first eight-month deployment to Iraq last year despite fighting in the insurgent stronghold of Fallouja.

But his mother was worried when the Hawthorne man returned there in September for a second tour only weeks after being injured in a bombing. She believed that he was worried too.

"I know my children well," said Kim Hearn of Rialto. "I heard it in his voice, and to me it seemed like he just feared it."

About three weeks before his death, Mayhan called his mother from a military hospital. He was being treated for an injured hand and severe headaches after a bomb struck his Humvee.

"In my opinion he shouldn't have been out there," his mother told the Daily Breeze of Torrance. "My son survived an explosion, and within a month's time they send him back out there. I think it was too early."

Mayhan joined the Marine Corps in 2003 without explaining his decision to his mother, although she knew he was unhappy with his job at a retail store.

"I feared for my son, and so I was against it," Hearn said. But, she added: "I was proud of him. He was a man at this time, and my job was to support him and his decision."

Mayhan spoke English and Spanish and was learning Arabic. He had talked about a career with the Secret Service or elsewhere in law enforcement after he left the military, his mother said.

"I couldn't ask for a better son," she said. "It feels good to know that. He stood up and did what he had to do. He fought to the end."

"I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. Some of these young men think that war is all glory but let me say war is all hell."


-- William Tecumseh Sherman
Civil War

Calif -- Good quote. I had a friend come back from the green Zone last month. He wonders what we are doing there, and he's served in the active and reserve military for 40 of his 58 years of life. He refuses to say he doesn't support the mission, but he just doesn't think the Iraqis want us, and he knows it's a blood bath of internecine for the Iraqis. A visit to the morgue was a moving experience. Family members brave enough to go to the morgue to find their missing family members first have to go th a morgue for torsos, then to a separate morgue for heads, and then to another for assorted body parts. He thought that was NOT what we intended to accomplish when we declared Iraq liberated.

He also said the casualties are thoroughly underreported. None of the military casualty figures report the contractor casualties or the mercenary casualties, which effectively doubles the tally. What we have is a difficult to justify war planned by immature boys with very expensive toys and no understanding of what they were getting the US into.

Folks:

And now the drums are beating for Iran. We, as a country, cannot let this happen. We have put our young people in enough of harms' way. This...this...I can't call him President because I don't feel like that...person who occupies the White House is once again sending out messages against Iran. Since neither Jenna nor Barbara will be going voluntarily, perhaps the draft is a good thing. Do you think they will be drafted? I don't! I think Granpa's money will once again come to the rescue and provide another generation with the attitude that no service is good service!

We have got to stop the drumbeat of the ignorant! This is a scary time now and we should all be very afraid. I know I am!

These sleazy bastards (pardon my language) will do whatever it takes to keep the money flowing, and not to us!

Our country is going to hell in a hand basket and the White House just gives us that snort as though we are in on the secret!

We have to shout! We have to scream! We have to make it known that we DONOT want a war with Iran!

God bless the families of the fallen. May their sons, daughters, husbands, fathers, and family members be remembered by all for their ultimate sacrifice.

Rest in Peace!

Calif,

If my son dies in Iraq, could you please not use his death as a political statement?

Marine Dad,
LastAmerican

LastAmerican,

Could you kindly STFU and not let the deaths of so many in Iraq be swept under the rug?

The Dead in Iraq.

Be Well.

PS: Agin CChris it is a good an neccesary thing you do here every week.

RIP.

What DethSpud Sed.

Larry

Calif,

If my son dies in Iraq, could you please not use his death as a political statement?

Marine Dad,
LastAmerican
Posted by LastAmerican at 2007-02-12 09:09 PM | Reply

This weekly list was never meant to be a political statement. We have 50 other threads on here per day to state our opinions on Bush's war in Iraq. Hopefully your son, LastAmerican, will return from Iraq unharmed both physically and mentally. However, if worse comes to worse and your son should die fighting in Bush's war over in Iraq, just let me know his real name and I will make sure he never gets mentioned or remembered by others on this weekly list that honors those who lost their lives. You have my word on that.

Your son, if God forbid something should happen to him over in Iraq, shall remain off this list -- without further acknowledgment to anyone in this country that your son even existed -- outside of his friends and family.

His death would then be remembered exactly as the White House would prefer it to be for all our dead soldiers and Marines in Iraq -- a nameless statistic, just a number ("4 killed by IED's" or "2 soldiers shot down in al-Anbar" or "6 Marines dead in Humvee explosion"), with no hometown, no age, and taking up no more than two lines of newsprint on page 24 of some newspaper.

War and death can be so untidy and messy for those who have to explain why these young men were sent there to die in the first place. I guess when regular Americans might try in a simple way to give each of these young soldiers and Marines a real name, an age, their hometown, and telling how they died in order to honor their short lives for just a bit longer -- well, that does make it a bit harder and more awkward to just sweep their deaths under the rug, doesn't it, Last American.