AF 1st Lt. Roslyn Schulte, killed in action may 20, 2009.

First Lt. Roslyn L. Schulte, 25, died Wednesday near Kabul, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered in a roadside bomb attack.

Schulte was the first female graduate of the Air Force Academy to be killed in action. One of her friends wrote:

Ros was truly an exceptional person. Usually when you hear that about someone who just died, it’s almost always exaggeration, if not pure BS. With Ros, it’s not. She passed up on the Ivy leagues to go to the Air Force Academy. She qualified for state in five different sports in high school, was an all-American in college, a qualified pilot. She was ALWAYS kind to others. She went out of her way to call her mom and dad two or three times a week every week she was here. Sorry I don’t do that, Mom and Dad. No one did, except for Ros. She dreamed of getting out of the air force to settle down and start a family. She didn’t drink. She didn’t like the lifestyle of the military — said it didn’t work well for family. She wanted to be a successful business owner (like her mom), but worried that would interfere with raising a family.

More coverage of the female warfighter’s loss:

CNN

KSDK

Ladies of Liberty

Cpl. Jennifer M. Parcell, 20, of Bel Air, Md., died Feb. 7 2007 while supporting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq. Parcell was assigned to Combat Logistics Regiment 3, 3rd Marine Logistics Group, III Marine Expeditionary Force, Okinawa, Japan.

Cpl. Jennifer M. Parcell, 20, of Bel Air, Md., died Feb. 7 while supporting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.

She was killed by a female suicide bomber. Parcell was part of the renowned “Lioness” program that the Marine Corps instituted where female warfighters were tasked to search female Iraqis.

More about this American Marine:

Our original story

Her high school mourns

MySpace memorial

Sgt. Amanda Pinson, killed in action march 16, 2006

We are deeply saddened for the loss of SGT Amanda Pinson. We are all still in shock. Amanda was a great soldier and an even better person. We all know where Amanda must be now. Amanda was already an angel and loved by all who knew her. We who knew Amanda are all devastated and heartbroken and she will never be forgotten.

I knew Amanda personally. Amanda was a 98C Signals Intelligence Analyst. Although I am the Senior 98C working in the same unit Amanda did not work directly for me yet I still often spoke with her and she often came to me for advice on many different matters. Although all of our soldiers are precious to us Amanda was like a daughter to me and she will always be loved and remain in my thoughts, prayers, and in my heart. I will forever miss hearing Amanda calling me Old Man.

Amanda will always be loved and missed by those who knew her. Amanda was always funny, full of laughter, and quite the jokester too. She always made everyone’s day a better day. Amanda set the example for all to live by. If only all people conducted themselves in this manner we would all be in a better place. We who knew Amanda are all truly blessed to have known her and all hope to one day be good enough to see her again.

I along with many other Rear Detachment soldiers from Amanda’s unit went to St. Louis to meet Amanda’s family, pay our respects, and attend her funeral. It was the saddest moment in my life yet the most rewarding. The attendance by those who loved and knew her and the support of the local community were truly amazing and emotional. I would like to thank Amanda’s family for their hospitality and their graciousness that they showed us in their own time of mourning. They are truly wonderful loving people just like Amanda.

V/R,
Stuart K. Bailey
101st ABN DIV

Read all the posts about this remarkable young American at this link.

Spc. Jessica Sarandrea, 22, of Miami, was killed during a mortar attack, March 3 2009, in Mosul, Iraq.

Sarandrea, who graduated from Coral Gables High School, was stationed in Mosul, where she worked as a supply specialist performing logistical support for her battalion, said Alejandro ”Alex” Sarandrea, her husband. She was walking from her office, perhaps to get her gear, when she was hit by shrapnel from incoming mortar, her husband said.

More about this female warfighter:

Our Best: Spc. Jessica Sarandrea – KIA

Killeen Daily Herald

KWTX

Family website

She fidgeted with her black bracelet showing a black and white portrait of a man wearing dark sunglasses inscribed with a date and some words. Underneath her uniform, she wears a cross concealing within it, a vial of ashes. She smiled as she said, “I am a walking memorial of my brother.”

Capt. Linda A. Bass, a support operations resource plans officer for the 3d Sustainment Command (Expeditionary), began her deployment hoping to visit Forward Operating Base Marez; where a street was named after her little brother, Sgt. 1st Class Richard Henkes, who died in combat during Operation Iraqi Freedom in Sept. 2006.

“He had just been promoted … and this was his first time being a platoon sergeant, a “platoon daddy” as he liked to call it, and he was very excited about it,” Bass said.

Henkes was assigned to 2nd Battalion,3rd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 2nd Inf. Division, Fort Lewis, Wash., when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle during combat operations.

Approximately a month later, Henkes’ previous commander e-mailed Bass to tell her a road had been named in her brother’s honor. He also included a photo of the sign.

“I told my dad I’m going to see that sign and going to take a picture in front of it,” said Bass, a Bessemer, Ala., native. “I didn’t know it would actually happen.”

Bass spoke with the support operations officer for the 3d ESC, Col. Cheri A. Provancha, about her wishes to travel to FOB Marez. Provancha knew the commanding general of the 3d ESC Brig. Gen. Michael J. Lally was going on a trip to FOB Marez; she requested Bass accompany him. Lally agreed.

“I was very excited about that,” said Provancha, a San Diego, Calif., native. “The fact that she was able to go up there and get some closure is pretty important.”

“I was just amazed and gratified by their support and their willingness to do that for me, especially since I had just gotten here,” Bass said.

Bass flew by helicopter to Marez with Lally. While riding to the tactical operations center, Bass saw her brother’s road sign. She had a restless night waiting to find it again in the morning.

The next day Bass traveled around the base with her own driver. With his help they found two street signs with her brother’s name and stumbled upon a third. Bass laid a charm in the shape of a shield with the verse Joshua 1:9 inscribed on the back at the base of one of the signs. The verse is, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

Bass, armed with photos of her brother on FOB Marez, visited more sights on the post and took photos to match the ones her brother took three years ago.

Her stops included a barrier where her brother’s unit’s art was displayed and the trauma room where he spent his last moments. She made a stop at the coffee shop on base thinking if it was there in 2006, it would have been one of the places he visited. “He was a coffee snob,” Bass laughed.

Before leaving FOB Marez, Bass was given one of the street signs with “HENKES Ln.” painted in bold, white letters slightly dusted by the weather of Iraq.

“Not many people who have lost their loved ones here can say that they’ve had an opportunity to walk where he walked and be where he last lived,” Bass said. “The fact that I get to bring a little piece of that home to share with my family is amazing to me.”

DVIDS
Story by Pfc. Amanda Tucker

A Polish military rifle team standby to deliver a twenty-one gun salute during a Memorial Day ceremony May 26, 2008, at Camp Echo, Iraq. (U.S. Air Force photo/Airman 1st Class Matthew Plew)/cite>

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A very cool message from Afghanistan to a small town in upstate NY.

LINK

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]]> http://northshorejournal.org/memorial-day-2008/feed 0 http://northshorejournal.org/memorial-day-2007 http://northshorejournal.org/memorial-day-2007#comments Mon, 28 May 2007 14:15:18 +0000 Chuck Simmins http://northshorejournal.org/index.php/2007/05/memorial-day-2007

Amanda Pinson, KIA March 16, 2006

Jason Dunham, KIA April 14, 2004

Terrence Crowe KIA June 7, 2005

Charles H. Simmins, Sr. RIP July 12, 1985

]]> http://northshorejournal.org/memorial-day-2007/feed 0 http://northshorejournal.org/memorial-day-on-americas-north-shore http://northshorejournal.org/memorial-day-on-americas-north-shore#comments Mon, 28 May 2007 14:00:38 +0000 Chuck Simmins http://northshorejournal.org/index.php/2007/05/memorial-day-on-americas-north-shore

Memorial Day is a special day for most people in the small communities that dot America’s North Shore. It’s the holiday that the entire community participates in, and that’s something you don’t see in the large communities.

Growing up, I remember being in every Memorial Day parade for years. Sometimes we rode the fire trucks. It was a treat to ride the antique truck, antique even then some forty years ago. Most of the time we rode the pumpers, and once the tanker. Other times we marched, as Cub Scouts, Little League. Heck, some kids just put streamers on their bikes and rode along in the parade.

The fire department and the ambulance were always in the parade. The color guard from the American Legion led. Fire trucks from a half dozen other fire departments would also join, as their schedules allowed. The school band and pom pom girls marched, as did one or more bands from neighboring schools. Again, as their schedules allowed. The town cop and a deputy or a trooper. These are good sized parades going for a half hour or more. Some folks planned their day, going from parade to parade.

Our parade ended up at the cemetery. The vets all had flags on their graves. The same guy did it for thirty plus years. There was a monument to our war dead there, just as there is in every village along the North Shore.

There are speeches, prayers, a 21 gun salute, and Taps is played by someone from the band.

That was how Memorial Day went when I grew up and that’s the way it still is in the heart of America’s North Shore. It’s also the time when we decorate the graves of our family members who have gone to God. We’d drive in to Hornell every year about this time and climb the hill to plant flowers at Grandpa and Grandma DeLaney’s grave. We’d pray for them and for all the souls.

Later in life, as a volunteer firefighter, I took part in parades. The Andover parade always touched me because their memorial lists the dead from their community in the Civil War. Andover is a very small town, and in reading the names and counting the dead, you can see that an entire generation from that community gave their lives.

East Rochester has its own war memorial. Below the fold you will find pictures I took of that somber place. It memorializes those who served and those who died so that our country might remain free.

]]> http://northshorejournal.org/memorial-day-on-americas-north-shore/feed 0 http://northshorejournal.org/memorial-day-2006 http://northshorejournal.org/memorial-day-2006#comments Mon, 29 May 2006 05:00:25 +0000 Chuck Simmins http://blog.simmins.org/index.php/2006/05/memorial-day-2006

There have been complaints in the media that there are no heroes from the War on Terror. That is not true but it serves their interests well to portray our soldiers as less than courageous.

I have been honored to play a small part in memorializing two American soldiers that you have never heard about. Both died in defense of the United States. Both not only did their duty, but did it well. America is a better place because of these two.

Amanda Pinson felt called to defend her country. She was a member of the storied 101st Airborne, working as a signals analyst in Iraq. While standing at a bus stop on-base, out of a clear blue sky a mortar bomb fell, killing her and a fellow soldier next to her.

A sad story, but not uncommon in the War on Terror. What followed my note of this death, however, is remarkable.

I heard from family, friends, and fellow soldiers about Amanda. What had begun as a short note turned into comment after comment about this extraordinary young woman.

One of her supervisors from Iraq calls her a hero:

I would like to just pass on some comments about this American Hero and Soldier. She was a kind person that everyone in this organization loved. She was always there to give me that first smile at shift change, ask how things were going, and ask how I was doing. She always shared pictures of loved ones back home and was so proud of her family. I will never forget her smile, her kindness, and love for her country. She made an everlasting impression on all soldiers she worked with. This everlasting impression is Army wide which is evident by all the individual calls and emails sent to express their sympathy.

She was deeply concerned for soldiers’ safety and news of soldiers that had been injured or worse only increased her energy for her job. She was inexhaustible in her work. She was an expert and I continually called on her to take on some of the hardest work due to her abilities and love for her job. Due to this Hero’s skills and hard work, soldiers’ lives were saved. Soldiers in this Division and the ones that worked with her will benefit from her work for a long time.

I was glad to hear the soldiers from G2 at Fort Campbell were there to give SGT Pinson the respect and honor that everyone here was praying for. The family will continue to be in my thoughts and prayers. I will always remember SGT Pinson as a true friend, a superb leader, and most of all a Hero. She will never be forgotten.

I received comments from members of her unit, from soldiers she worked with, and from soldiers who had heard about her. Her family wrote, former teachers, old friends, friends of friends, and complete strangers. But outside of the city of St. Louis, her family and friends, and the soldiers she knew, almost no one will ever know about Amanda Pinson.

That’s a shame.

Another American soldier you won’t hear about is Lieutenant Colonel Terrence Crowe from Buffalo, New York. Lt. Col. Crowe was on a training mission in Tel Afar, training the new Iraqi Army when he was killed.

Terrence Crowe taught ROTC at Canisius College in Buffalo. It was his job to instill in Army officers the skills and character qualities they would need to lead men.

His country called upon him to do the same in a foreign land. In June 2005, Tel Afar was a dangerous place. The terrorists had to be displaced, and a combined force of Americans and Iraqis was tasked with the job.

Lt. Col. Crowe and an American sergeant were with a patrol of about 17 Iraqi soldiers when they were ambushed. As he always did, Crowe was leading from the front. When the firing began, he was hit almost immediately. Many of the Iraqis retreated, leaving Sgt. 1st Class Gary Villalobos and a handful of Iraqi soldiers to fight. They did, and Sgt. Villalobos was able to recover Crowe’s body.

Lieutenant Colonel Terrence Crowe was a teacher. He could have practiced his trade in a classroom on a military base. With his rank, he could have delegated patrolling to someone junior to him. He chose to do neither. It was important for him to be with that Iraqi patrol, out in front, teaching by example. The lessons that Iraqis learned from Terrence Crowe will make Iraq a better place. Almost no one outside of Buffalo and Iraq will ever know about Terrence Crowe.

That’s a shame.

Neither Amanda Pinson nor Terrence Crowe will be remembered like Alvin York or Audie Murphy. Neither sought out combat, and their deaths were as random as possible. Both of them represent the unsung heroes of the War on Terror who you will never read about or see on the 6 o’clock news. Their memories live on in the hearts of their loved ones and those they touched. A young woman and a teacher, American soldiers.

Previous in series Next in series

Table of contents for Amanda Pinson

1. Spc. Amanda Pinson
2. Sgt Amanda Pinson
3. Burying Amanda
4. More Missing Amanda
5. Amanda, Slandered in Death
6. Memorial Day 2006
7. NSA Honors Amanda
8. In the Service of Her Country: Amanda Pinson

]]> http://northshorejournal.org/memorial-day-2006/feed 1 http://northshorejournal.org/memorial-day-2004-2 http://northshorejournal.org/memorial-day-2004-2#comments Mon, 31 May 2004 22:59:59 +0000 Chuck Simmins http://blog.simmins.org/1999/11/memorial-day-2004/

While the band played a stirring march, the 5th Field Artillery Group passed in review for the sixteen veterans, all members of the Group and its battalions, who had just been decorated with the Silver Star by Lieutenant General GEORGE S. PATTON, JR. The United States Army’s outstanding tactical commander had paid high tribute to the officers and men of the Group for the superior manner in which they, individually and as a unit, had accomplished the difficult tasks assigned them. The date was 17 September 1943, shortly after the close of the Sicilian campaign. The officers and men of the Group were already seasoned veterans of two campaigns, the Tunisian and Sicilian, having supported every division thus far committed by the United States Army in the Middle East Theatre, and the First French Provisional Army.

Fifth Field Artillery Unit History

Memorial Day is for remembering that so many, the flower of our youth, never came home. They rest in places throughout the world, little plots of land that will forever be American. Fathers, sons, brothers, husbands, mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, they gave their lives for us.

Every generation, not just the Greatest Generation, has been called to water the Tree of Liberty with blood. I’ve memorialized a few heroes of the War on Terror here. But the dead of Somalia, Vietnam, Korea, the Cold War, and a hundred other little places and times, also shed their blood for America.

America is that shining city on the hill that Ronald Reagan spoke about. It is the greatest hope for mankind on earth. We have shed our blood for strangers in many lands, and millions are free that were not because of our sacrifices. This is something that we should celebrate, in our mourning for our dead. We bring freedom to the slave, to the oppressed.

George Bush has said that freedom is God’s gift to mankind. As with all of God’s gifts, we must choose to keep it. Our dead, this Memorial Day, are part and parcel of that choice.

Lincoln said:

It is rather for us the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us–that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion–that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

FDR said:

In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression — everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way — everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants — everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor — anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called “new order” of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.

To that new order we oppose the greater conception –the moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear.

Since the beginning of our American history we have been engaged in change, in a perpetual, peaceful revolution, a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly, adjusting itself to changing conditions without the concentration camp or the quicklime in the ditch. The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society.

This nation has placed its destiny in the hands, heads and hearts of its millions of free men and women, and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights and keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose.

To that high concept there can be no end save victory.

I have stood in tiny graveyards where old men present flags. Where a lonely bugle plays. Where a salute from rifles shatters the quiet. I have stood amidst firefighters and EMT’s, police and Boy Scouts, Little Leaguers and high school bands, and mourned the dead. And thanked the dead for what I have today.

Thank you, Daddy.

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