Petrified Truth

Heroes

Stars and Stripes issued a special edition recently: Heroes - A Nation Honors Valor in the War on Terror.

For more than four years now, American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines have been fighting the war on terror. While politicians and pundits argue the merits and demerits of strategy and prosecution, the military man or woman has been slugging it out, every day, with a foe who is often unseen.

Day after day, they move among the chaos in Afghanistan or Iraq, trying to build bridges, to deliver supplies, to do as they have been asked to help build a stable society where there was none.

They move among the people, wanting to trust but knowing they cannot. They endure dust storms and boredom punctuated by moments of fury, and months of long, sleepless nights away from their loved ones.

Many have died or been maimed. And many, living and dead, have met the test of fear and violence with uncommon valor.

Amazingly typical is the story of "Sgt. Pepper."

When he saw the RPG headed toward him, Army Staff Sgt. Jason Pepper’s first instinct was to push his men out of the way.

“They were young guys, and they had families and their whole life ahead of them, too,” the 28-year-old from the 16th Engineer Battalion said. “I protected them because it was the right thing to do.”

...The ambush site was a tight corridor — as they looked to their left, one of their own tanks pulled up close and partially blocked off their field of fire. Pepper said as he turned around to cover the other direction, he saw an insurgent fire another RPG.

Instinctively, he dove into soldiers closest to him, knocking them behind a tank and out of the explosive’s range. The two men suffered only some bumps and bruises as the round exploded.

As he stood to return fire, a remote bomb planted in a tree detonated just a few feet away. The blast caught him full force.

The only sign that Pepper was still alive was the air bubbling through the blood covering his nose.

Read them all. And then say "Thanks" in every way you can.

Posted by Alan at July 3, 2006 09:49 AM