Homily by Chaplain Jim Cravens at the funeral for PFC Jonathan L. Gifford, USMC, who was killed in combat on 23 March 2003 in Iraq.
“When Jesus talked about laying down a life, he was talking about what he was willing to do for his friends. He had a soldier’s heart. But he was also inviting us to be a part of that band of brothers. He was inviting us to live a life that is as concerned about others as it is about self. And in that sense, military life and the family of God have an awful lot in common. It’s not about me. It’s about the guy next to me, and the guy next to him. It’s about all of us, and what we can do for each other...”
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What about Private Lori?, by Gary Younge, The Guardian, April 9 2003
“This is the tale of two privates. They were sisters-in-arms - two young women fighting for Uncle Sam. They were roommates at Fort Bliss military base in Texas; tentmates in the Gulf, and close friends at all places in between. Then they (and 13 other members of the US Army’s 507th Maintenance Company) took a wrong turn in the southern Iraqi city of Nassiriya and were ambushed. One, Jessica Lynch, 19, was injured, hospitalised and then rescued by Special Forces to emerge as the poster girl for American resilience and camaraderie. The other, Lori Piestewa, 23, was killed, with the gruesome distinction of being the first native American in the US army to be killed in combat and the only American servicewoman to die in this war..”
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Reporting from Baghdad, Michael M. Phillips, 11 April 2003
"Marine Cpl. James Lis, 21 years old, is worried that for the rest of his life he'll be haunted by the image: A clean-shaven, twenty something Iraqi in a white shirt, lying wounded in an alleyway and reaching for his rifle -- just as Cpl. Lis pumped two shots into his head..."
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Pre-battle speech by Lt. Colonel Tim T. Collins,the British commander of the First Battalion, Royal Irish Regiment, reported on 25 March 2003
“We go to liberate not to conquer. We will not fly our flags in their country," he said. "We are entering Iraq to free a people and the only flag which will be flown in that ancient land is their own. Show respect for them. "There are some who are alive at this moment who will not be alive shortly. Those who do not wish to go on that journey, we will not send. As for the others I expect you to rock their world. Wipe them out if that is what they choose. But if you are ferocious in battle remember to be magnanimous in victory...”
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A first-person account of a day at sea aboard one of the Navy's newest guided missile destroyers, USS Winston S. Churchill (DDG 81) in the days following the September 11th 2001 attacks.
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05 October 2001 E-mail report to Bishop George E. Packard from Chaplain John Weatherly, Bosnia
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Quotes From William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury,During World War II
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Homily by Chaplain Jim Cravens at the funeral for PFC Jonathan L. Gifford, USMC, who was killed in combat on 23 March 2003 in Iraq. Johathan was a the father of a three-year old child. The funeral was conducted on 23 April at Maranatha Assembly of God Church, Decatur, IL.

Today I want to talk about three families . . .

The first family is our biological and legal family – those we are related to by blood and marriage. On Easter Sunday I sat with Vicky and her extended family and shared in their memories. Stories about fishing with Grandpa, Johnny getting hurt on his bicycle, wrestling, playing baseball and football, high school letters, and time spent with Lexie. I felt a bit like an intruder listen to those intimate and personal memories – although after you’ve been there are while you feel more like family than a stranger. There is a rich network of family ties that Johnny was a part of. Those ties will sustain many of you in the days and weeks to come. As we talked on Easter, someone said, “Johnny is still alive in our hearts.” And it’s true – you will keep him close to you as long as those memories are alive. Death cannot take any of that away. In that sense you are much more blessed than many families who do not have those deep ties. As I heard the stories and saw the pictures of graduations, weddings, and family events, I felt like I got to know Johnny a little.

The second family I want to talk about is the Marine Corps family. It’s a little different than the first, because you join this family – you aren’t born into it. Joining that family was something Johnny wanted for ten years. Mother first said “no”, but then later, as mothers to do, she let go, and let Jonathan pursue his dream. The family told me than when he was asked why the Marines as opposed to some other service, he said, “Because they are proud”. When I talk about the Marine Corps family I also feel a bit like an intruder. Even though I spent 4 years as a Squadron Chaplain with MAG 49, I was always a guest. I may have worked with Marines, but I was Navy. And there is a big difference. But even as an outsider you know that Marines see the world differently than the other services. They train to higher standards, they insist on a greater degree of professionalism, and they are more deeply committed to on another. They play in a different league. Every Marine knows that, and anyone who has worked closely with Marines knows that. Pride is the best way to describe it. It’s not arrogance – arrogance is someone telling you they are better. Marines don’t have to say a word. Their actions tell the story.

Johnny loved the Marines. His cousin told me that when he would call from Camp Lejune, he would insisted on introducing all his squad mates on the phone. He wanted his new family to know his first family. Both were extremely important to him.

What distinguishes military service from almost every other profession is that each individual comes to understand that the group is more important than any one person. It starts with boot camp, and gets reinforced at every step along the way. It’s not about you, it’s about us. You watch out for your buddy, and he watches out for you. We can do together far more than we can do individually. The whole is much greater than the sum of the individuals. And when young men discover that reality, they are put in touch with something which is largely unknown in the civilian world. The creed for the civilian world is looking out for number one. Things like duty, honor, courage and commitment seem quaint. But once you discovered the mystical power of working with and for something larger than yourself, much of what our civilian world values starts to look pretty silly.

It’s for that reason that Marines go in harm’s way. They do it for each other, and for all the rest of us. They do it because the big picture is more important than any individual. Walk down to the local convenience store and look for that kind of commitment. It just isn’t there. But it’s all around you when you are with a group of Marines. They are a band of brothers that cannot be completely understood unless you are a Marine.

The third family I want to talk about is the family of God. All of us belong to that family whether we realize it or not. It too, is marked by deep principles that probably seem silly to most of the world around us. Jesus himself said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” A grunt might chose slightly different words, but he would understand exactly what was being said. Unless you are willing to risk all for your friend, it would not be possible to pick up a rifle or ride into combat in an AMTRAC. You do it because you trust the person next to you, and because you are committed to not letting him down. You won’t find that at the convenience store, where getting to work on time may be the biggest accomplishment of the day. When Jesus talked about laying down a life, he was talking about what he was willing to do for his friends. He had a soldier’s heart. But he was also inviting us to be a part of that band of brothers. He was inviting us to live a life that is as concerned about others as it is about self. And in that sense, military life and the family of God have an awful lot in common. It’s not about me. It’s about the guy next to me, and the guy next to him. It’s about all of us, and what we can do for each other.

Our society is in desperate need of that kind of family value. People sometimes refer to military life as “the service”. Service sounds like a noun. It’s something we belong to. But actually it’s a verb. Service is something we do. More specifically it’s something we do for someone else. For the guy next to me, the unit, our country, and ultimately our God. You aren’t in the service, you are one who serves. That’s what motivates Marines – and yes, even all those other guys. It isn’t the clothes, or the haircuts, or the chance to live in a tent or get shot at. It’s the satisfaction of being one who serves. And in that sense, it has a lot in common with the religious life.

I didn’t know Johnny personally, so I can’t comment on his spiritual life or perspective. And in some sense it doesn’t really matter. We are members of the family of God whether we know it or not. But what I do know, is that Johnny was playing in the big leagues when it comes to the things that ultimately matter. He had chosen a life that involved sacrifice, and whose quality would be measured by things like duty, honor, courage, commitment. And above all, service to others. That’s what Marines do. That’s what Semper Fi means – Always Faithful. Not just when it’s convenient or without cost – faithful even when there is pain and sacrifice. Always Faithful. Not just to some abstract principles – faithful to the guy on your right, faithful to the guy on your left. Always faithful. Not just until it begins to be dangerous – but faithful even when it means risking or even losing your life. Always faithful. That’s the world that Johnny lived in. And the world that you an I inhabit is much richer because there have been people like Johnny who were willing to live that way. Not just for the guy on the left and on the right, but for all of us as well.

Jesus said, “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.” Johnny no longer lives here, even though his memory is alive, and his family will continue to feel his presence. He has gone to the Father’s house, and I am confident that he has been welcome into that household – that family – with a hearty greeting of “Well done, good and faithful servant!” Well done to one who kept the faith, and who lived a life of service.

What about Private Lori?
by Gary Younge, The Guardian, April 9 2003

This is the tale of two privates. They were sisters-in-arms - two young women fighting for Uncle Sam. They were roommates at Fort Bliss military base in Texas; tentmates in the Gulf, and close friends at all places in between. Then they (and 13 other members of the US Army’s 507th Maintenance Company) took a wrong turn in the southern Iraqi city of Nassiriya and were ambushed. One, Jessica Lynch, 19, was injured, hospitalised and then rescued by Special Forces to emerge as the poster girl for American resilience and camaraderie. The other, Lori Piestewa, 23, was killed, with the gruesome distinction of being the first native American in the US army to be killed in combat and the only American servicewoman to die in this war.
On the face of it, Piestewa, from the Hopi tribe, does not fit the bill for the all-American war hero or heroine. She was a single mother of two who left her four-year-old son, Brandon, and three-year-old daughter, Carla, with her parents who live in a trailer in Tuba City, Arizona while she went to fight in the Middle East. But, in more ways than one, hers is the other American face of this war, fought by a military whose ranks have been swelled by poor, non-white women. A volunteer army comprising recruits who, whatever their patriotic credentials, have few other choices.

Tuba City is home mostly to Navajo people although it sits on the edge of a Hopi reservation - a piece of land returned to native Americans by the federal government. In theory, they are independent nations entering into bilateral treaties with the US government; in practice most reservations are situated on poor land with limited independence and home to the most impoverished minority in the country.

The Hopi land is no exception - a vast expanse of hundreds of miles of red rock and yellow sand peppered with trailers and brick housing that would not look out of place in a South African township. A nation of tumbleweed and tumbledown, where more than 50% of the inhabitants are unemployed.

It was not just the poverty of the reservation that made the armed forces an attractive proposition for Piestewa. Serving in the military is a family tradition. Her father fought in Vietnam and her grandfather served in the second world war. As a 17-year-old, she was the commanding officer of the Junior ROTC (cadet) programme at Tuba City High School, leading dozens of students in drills. Two years later she married a local man but divorced him shortly after Carla was born. She then joined the army partly out of an interest in the job, neighbours say, but primarily to provide a secure income with which to raise her children.

This community of 8,200, which according to the census is almost 95% native American, is tight-knit and tight-lipped. Since just about everyone knew her or her parents, nobody has been unaffected. Since the immediate family do not wish to talk to the media, few outside it will venture anything beyond, “She was a great girl”, “We are very proud” and “It’s so sad”, for fear of appearing to be exploiting her death.

Evidence of her absence is everywhere. Small shrines with huge pictures of Piestewa have sprung up in the supermarket and outside her house. Shops have put donation buckets on display to raise money for her children, and two radio talk-show hosts in Phoenix are starting a trust fund to pay for the children’s education.

Even the centuries-long feud between the Hopi and the Navajo has abated. At a rally last week, leaders from the two tribes made a rare joint appearance as about 5,000 people gathered to pray for Piestewa and the other missing soldiers. “Navajo, Hopi, nobody cares now,” says Archie Ortiz, an army veteran. “We are all together in remembering her.”

At least 45 Hopis are serving overseas and around 70 Navajos are in the Middle East. “You would think that the general history of native Americans would make them opposed to involvement in the military,” says Tim Johnson, the executive editor of the country’s leading weekly paper on native American affairs, Indian Country Today. There has been no specific polling of native American attitudes towards the war, although Johnson believes it would be slightly higher than average.

Indeed, during the first Gulf war a group of native Americans in Oregon wrote an open letter to President George Bush Sr, ridiculing his pretext for attacking Iraq. “Dear President Bush,” it read. “Please send your assistance in freeing our small nation from occupation. This foreign force occupied our lands to steal our rich resources ... As in your own words, ‘The occupation and overthrow of one small nation is one too many.’ Yours sincerely, An American Indian.”

Moreover, the army’s sensitivity to native American culture leaves much to be desired, says Johnson. “They still talk about ‘going into Indian country’, meaning enemy territory,” he says. They continue to dwell on the stereotype of native Americans as warriors, giving their missiles names like Apache and Tomahawk. “On the one hand they think of us as fierce warriors and on the other they refer to us as being hostile to American interests.”

Yet after African-Americans, native Americans are the ethnic group represented most strongly in the military. In the second world war, the Navajo radio operators were known as the Codetalkers, after they used their complex language to devise a code for allied communications that the Japanese were never able to break. One of the soldiers raising the flag at Iwo Jima was a native American.

Johnson, whose father fought in Vietnam, believes there are two main reasons why so many of his people join up. The first is political: “Native Americans have a great appreciation for freedom and liberty,” he says. The second is economic: native Americans are the poorest of all ethnic and racial groups in America. “The military is one world where people can build lives and make something else of themselves,” he says.

This has made the American military more reliant on the poor, and therefore non-whites, than ever. In 1973, 23% of the military was from racial minorities; in 2000 it was 37%. While Hispanics remain underrepresented compared to the population as a whole, they are rapidly catching up. While the total number of military personnel dropped 23% in the last decade the number of Hispanics leaped 30%.

This growth has been particularly marked among women. In the army, black women, who make up only 16% of the female civilian population, actually outnumber white women.

“A survey of the American military’s endlessly compiled and analysed demographics paints a picture of a fighting force that is anything but a cross-section of America, with minorities overrepresented and the wealthy and the underclass essentially absent,” wrote the New York Times recently.

The subject has become highly sensitive politically, with the Democratic congressman from Harlem, Charles Rangel, calling for the return of the draft. “It’s just not fair that the people we ask to fight our wars are people who join the military because of economic conditions, because they have fewer options,” he says.

The family of Shawna Johnson, a black female prisoner of war in Iraq, say she wanted to be a chef but couldn’t afford the training.

Not long after Piestewa’s disappearance became known, the commanding officer of Tuba City high school’s ROTC programme told the Arizona Republic she was no longer so keen on the military. “This is definitely teaching me the reality of life,” said 16-year-old Dezbah Begay. “Maybe I’ll become a chef or a police officer or a doctor instead.”

If Piestewa was pulled by patriotism she was also, by all accounts, pushed by economics. From what she said in an interview before she left for Kuwait in February, it was clear that she would miss her children: “It’s hard to leave them but they are going to be with their grandmother.” However, it sounded as though she was heading for a big adventure rather than combat. “I’m excited to go see something new,” she said. “I’m also going to learn a lot.”

The family received an email from her a few weeks ago, saying she was about to enter Iraq and it “felt good that she was not sitting around and waiting any more”.

Then came the news that soldiers had been captured, killed or were missing. Five of her colleagues, including Johnson, were questioned on Iraqi television; the Pentagon confirmed the death of two others. The fate of the other eight, of whom Piestewa was one, was unknown. For more than a week families of the two women waited for news. All around Tuba City signs were hung out telling people: “Put your porch light on, show Lori the way home.” They used white stone to spell her name on a 200ft mesa just outside the town. News of Lynch’s rescue last Tuesday raised hopes, but by Friday they were dashed again by a phone call from the army to say Piestewa was among the dead. The Lynch family heard the news just before boarding a flight to Germany to see Jessica.

Lynch will come home to West Virginia on crutches, to the waving of American flags; Piestewa will return to the reservation in a coffin draped in an American flag.

Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited
To see this story with its related links on the Guardian Unlimited site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk

BAGHDAD (April 11) - Marine Cpl. James Lis, 21 years old, is worried that for the rest of his life he'll be haunted by the image: A clean-shaven, twenty something Iraqi in a white shirt, lying wounded in an alleyway and reaching for his rifle -- just as Cpl. Lis pumped two shots into his head.

"Every time I close my eyes I see that guy's brains pop out of that guy's head," Cpl. Lis, from Shreveport, La., told his platoon mates Thursday, as they sat in a circle in the ruins of the Iraqi Oil Ministry's employee cafeteria. "That's a picture in my head that I will never be able to get rid of."

For Marine infantrymen now occupying the eastern half of the Iraqi capital, the worst fighting is probably over. But they're just beginning to cope with the psychological aftershocks of having faced death and inflicted it.

One lesson the military learned from painful experience with post-traumatic stress disorder after Vietnam is that troops may come home more mentally intact if, as soon as possible, they talk to each other about what they've gone through. In infantry school, Marine officers are taught to encourage their troops to talk about their experiences after battles. So, platoon by platoon, many Marines in Iraq are starting to hold informal group-therapy sessions -- "critical incident debriefings" in military parlance -- in which they share their feelings about what they've seen and what they've done.

"The touchy-feely stuff -- that's no joke," Second Lt. Isaac Moore told the platoon he commands in Lima Company of the First Marine Division, Seventh Regiment, Third Battalion. "If you keep picturing this guy and you shot him in the head, you've got to talk about that.

"Though a few had been shot at in Somalia, none of the 47 Marines of Lt. Moore's Second Platoon had seen any real combat before arriving in Iraq. Even during the war's first weeks, it seemed unlikely that they'd have to test their mettle. Iraqi forces always ran away before the platoon arrived. The platoon's first scrape was a minor encounter three weeks ago near Zubayr in which somebody took a few shots at the Marines, who returned fire for 40 minutes to no practical effect. No one on either side was hurt.

As they moved into Baghdad, however, the platoon ran into an escalating series of firefights with pro-regime militants armed with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. The fiercest was a battle Tuesday in the shell of a large building under construction in the city's southeast. The platoon began taking sniper fire, and the Marines soon found themselves shooting at enemy fighters just a few feet away, in a maze of pillars and open staircases.

It's a fight that has left deep marks on the young men. That's what Lt. Moore wanted them to talk about. So as they relaxed on cushions stripped off Oil Ministry sofas and awaited orders to patrol the city for Fedayeen holdouts and foreign suicide squads, the lieutenant invited each Marine to tell the platoon what he experienced, and how he felt about it.

Cpl. Anthony Antista, 29, from Monrovia, Calif., initially celebrated after he shot dead two Iraqi paramilitary men in a corner of the building site. But the exhilaration instantly gave way to guilt, especially for having felt glad that he had taken lives. "Hey, I shot two people," he told his comrades immediately after the fight.

The rest of the platoon brushed him off. He persisted: "I shot two people." They thought he was bragging. What he was really doing, he said, was trying to find someone who might understand how bad he felt.

It's an issue that was still on his mind two days later. "I can't share my pain with you because you don't accept that I killed two guys," Cpl. Antista told his comrades. To emphasize his point, he removed the magazine from his rifle, emptied the round from the firing chamber and acted out the encounter. He showed how he raised his rifle and fired. Then he sat on the ground and demonstrated how the Iraqis slumped when the rounds hit them."

The life just flowed right out of them," he said in a pained voice. "They were like Jell-O."

Staff Sgt. Matthew St. Pierre, 28, from Vallejo, Calif., faced off with an Iraqi fighter whose eyeglasses and face reminded him of one of his own Marines, Lance Cpl. Lance Carmouche, a 21-year-old machine gunner from Beaumont, Texas. The sergeant, the platoon's senior noncommissioned officer, took two shots as the Iraqi popped up from behind a low wall five feet away. He wasn't sure whether he hit the man, but the sergeant saw his body later."

Now every time I see Lance Cpl. Carmouche, I think of him," Sgt. St. Pierre told his men. A few minutes later in the fight, Sgt. St. Pierre found four Iraqi men in a small enclosed area. Three were apparently dead, but one, wounded, reached for his weapon. The staff sergeant shot him between the shoulder blades. The man again reached for his rifle, this time more slowly. The staff sergeant shot him in the back of the head.

When the gunfire quieted, the staff sergeant "eye-thumped" the Iraqi's body, to make sure he was really dead. The process involved poking the man in the eye with a rifle muzzle, the theory being that no man alive can avoid scrunching up his face in response to such a provocation.

It was an "eerie feeling," the staff sergeant recalled, "like I just did what the Lord in the Bible says not to do." But he added, "we did nothing wrong. They made no attempt to surrender, and we put them down."

Lt. Moore, 26, tried to comfort his troops by relating his own experience as a hunter, growing up in Wasilla, Alaska. He shot his first caribou at the age of seven or eight, he told them. It was thrilling to see the animal fall. When he got closer, however, he saw the caribou was still alive, convulsing in pain. The boy was unsure whether he was supposed to feel good or bad.

Over years of hunting caribou, bear and other animals, he grew accustomed to eye-thumping and death. So when Lt. Moore looked down from a staircase in the building in Baghdad and saw three Iraqis below, he didn't hesitate. The men had been wounded by a burst of machine-gun fire, but they were still moving. The lieutenant shot one man point-blank in the head and watched the results; the next man was twitching and got the same treatment."

It's gross, but here's the thing," the lieutenant told his Marines. "That queasy feeling -- I don't get that at all."

Keep in mind, he continued, the kind of die-hards they are fighting. To illustrate his point, Lt. Moore told them about something that had happened earlier in the day: A man who had escaped from one of Saddam Hussein's prisons after 13 years walked back to Baghdad to look for his family and somehow got past Marine guards at the Oil Ministry. The Marines found him curled up asleep in a corner. The man, Lt. Moore recounted, had acid and electric-shock burns on his legs.

The people who did that to the prisoner, the lieutenant said, are the sort of people the Marines were killing. "This is not somebody you need to worry about killing," he assured his troops. "When you stand outside the Pearly Gates or whatever you believe in, you're not going to be looked at any differently for what you did here."

Cpl. Lis, however, couldn't shake it off so easily. A genial jokester with a sand-colored buzz cut, the corporal has had the platoon's closest brushes with death in Iraq. He recounted them, one after another, for his fellow troops. On Wednesday, when the Marines seized the Oil Ministry, Cpl. Lis climbed to the roof to take a look at downtown Baghdad. A bullet heading towards his face missed him only because it hit the narrow metal rail in front of him.

At one point during the gunfight at the construction site, Cpl. Lis threw a hand grenade at an enemy fighter, only to have the Iraqi throw it back at Cpl. Juan Nielsen, a 26-year-old from Los Angeles. The grenade exploded, sending small pieces of metal shrapnel into Cpl. Nielsen's outer left ear -- a painful, but minor wound that turned out to be the only American casualty of the fight.

Later, Cpl. Lis saw a pineapple-shaped Iraqi grenade land less than eight feet in front of him, and two others -- Sgt. Timothy Wolkow, 26, from Huntington Beach, Calif., and Cpl. Dustin Soudan, 21, from Girard, Pa. Cpl. Lis yelled at the others to get down, and they crouched, covering their heads as it exploded. None of them were injured.

Then there was the moment that he worries will always haunt him: He saw the young Iraqi in the white shirt lying on his back, his right arm extended above his head, where a rifle lay. Another rifle was near his left arm. When the man moved his right arm toward the rifle, Sgt. Wolkow shot him. The man started moving again, and this time both Marines shot him in the head, Cpl. Lis firing twice.

Then Cpl. Lis performed the eye-thump ritual on the man. "It's the sickest feeling I've ever had in my life," he said at the therapy session.

Sgt. Wolkow had a more fleeting reaction. "As much as I love the Marine Corps and want to kill people, for a few seconds there was a kind of eerie feeling," after the first time he shot the man, he said. "It went away, and I shot the guy some more."

Write to Michael M. Phillips at michael.phillips@wsj.com

Copyright © 2003 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This rather eloquent pre-battle speech was made by the British commander of the First Battalion, Royal Irish Regiment, Lt. Colonel Tim T. Collins. He made the speech to his troops at Fort Blair Mayne in northern Kuwait before they left for Iraq. It has struck quite a cord in both Britain and the U.S. The New York Times carried it on 25 March 2003 and other media outlets have too.

"We go to liberate not to conquer. We will not fly our flags in their country," he said.

"We are entering Iraq to free a people and the only flag which will be flown in that ancient land is their own. Show respect for them.

"There are some who are alive at this moment who will not be alive shortly. Those who do not wish to go on that journey, we will not send.

"As for the others I expect you to rock their world. Wipe them out if that is what they choose. But if you are ferocious in battle remember to be magnanimous in victory.

"Iraq is steeped in history. It is the site of the Garden of Eden, of the Great Flood and the birthplace of Abraham. Tread lightly there.

"You will see things that no man could pay to see and you will have to go a long way to find a more decent, generous and upright people than the Iraqis. "You will be embarrassed by their hospitality even though they have nothing.

"Don't treat them as refugees for they are in their own country. Their children will be poor, in years to come they will know that the light of liberation in their lives was brought by you.

"If there are casualties of war then remember that when they woke up and got dressed in the morning they did not plan to die this day. "Allow them dignity in death. Bury them properly and mark their graves. "We will put them in their sleeping bags and send them back. There will be no time for sorrow.

"The enemy should be in no doubt that we are his nemesis and that we are bringing about his rightful destruction.

"There are many regional commanders who have stains on their souls and they are stoking the fires of hell for Saddam.

"He and his forces will be destroyed by this coalition for what they have done. As they die they will know their deeds have brought them to this place. Show them no pity."

"It is a big step to take another human life. It is not to be done lightly. "I know of men who have taken life needlessly in other conflicts, I can assure you they live with the mark of Cain upon them.

"If someone surrenders to you then remember they have that right in international law and ensure that one day they go home to their family. "The ones who wish to fight, well, we aim to please."

"If you harm the regiment or its history by over enthusiasm in killing or in cowardice, know it is your family who will suffer. "You will be shunned unless your conduct is of the highest for your deeds will follow you down through history. We will bring shame on neither our uniform or our nation.

"It is not a question of if, it's a question of when. We know he has already devolved the decision to lower commanders, and that means he has already taken the decision himself. If we survive the first strike we will survive the attack.

"As for ourselves, let's bring everyone home and leave Iraq a better place for us having been there. Our business now is north."

Given to the men of the 1st Battalion, Irish Guards, on war alert in Kuwait,
Wednesday, 19th of March, 2003.

What follows is a first-person account of a day at sea aboard one of the Navy's newest guided missile destroyers, USS Winston S. Churchill (DDG 81) in the days following the attacks. This account was in an e-mail sent home by one of Churchill's officers. The Churchill is an Arleigh Burke-class AEGIS guided-missile destroyer, commissioned 10 March 2001, and is the only active U.S. Navy warship named after a foreign national.

At sea, Sept. 14, 2001

Dear Dad, Well, we are still out at sea, with little direction as to what our next priority is. The remainder of our port visits, which were to be centered around max liberty and goodwill to the United Kingdom, have all but been cancelled. We have spent every day since the attacks going back and forth within imaginary boxes drawn in the ocean, standing high-security watches, and trying to make the best of our time. It hasn't been that fun I must confess, and to be even more honest, a lot of people are frustrated at the fact that they either can't be home, or we don't have more direction right now. We have seen the articles and the photographs, and they are sickening. Being isolated as we are, I don't think we appreciate the full scope of what is happening back home, but we are definitely feeling the effects.