Posted on 07/11/2008 9:26:54 AM PDT by traumer
FORT WORTH — In a few days, Francisco Martinez will land in Iraq.
He is one of tens of thousands of men and women who, with various motivations, enlisted in the armed forces, knowing that they’d someday end up there.
For Martinez, Iraq is a kind of perdition, a receptacle for all the dark emotions, anguish and guilt that have buffeted him for the last three years.
When Martinez steps off the airplane, he will be in the country that took his only son, a 20-year-old skateboarder and budding graphic artist whose loss is felt every single day of his father’s life.
This deployment — in fact, his entire enlistment — is completely his doing. Nobody forced this on Martinez, except maybe the sniper who put one well-placed bullet in Spc. Francisco G. Martinez on March 20, 2005, in Ramadi.
Joining the Air Force Reserve, after a 17-year break in his military service, was Martinez’s way of making sense of and coping with his son’s death, a way to remember him by being around young men his age serving their nation.
(Excerpt) Read more at star-telegram.com ...
My heart aches for this Father and his loss. I cannot imagine losing my only Son.
My heart aches for his wife and daughter.
Sometimes a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.
God Bless this father in his grief. Perhaps he will feel closer to his son there. Hopefully it will help him to deal with his grief and give meaning to his life again.
Proud to be an American!!
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