Freedom isn't Free (UPDATED)

(Originally from July, 2007.)

Received this email from Robert Stokely, father of Sergeant Michael Stokely who was KIA by IED near Yusufiyah south of Baghdad 16 Aug 2005:

We often hear this term: Freedom isn't Free. But, what does that really mean and if Freedom isn't Free, then what is the cost and who pays it?

The cost is watching someone you love go away for a long period of time where there is little contact as they endure the rigors and hardships of training.

The cost is watching someone you love serve for pay that doesn't always cover what it takes to live a standard of living most civilians enjoy and suffering a financial impact that can negatively alter a military family's prosperity for a lifetime.

The cost is deployment to combat.

The cost is a loved one leaving whole but coming home less than whole, physically, mentally or both.

The cost is a a loved one who never returns from a mission and is never found.

The cost is having to take another's life, even if they are the enemy, and living with that the rest of your life.

The cost is watching a close friend die, maybe even holding them in your arms, helpless to save them and living a life of remembering that moment and feeling guilty that it wasn't you who died instead of the close friend.

The cost is a family waiting and watching 24 / 7, hoping and praying as they watch daily newscasts about our military personnel dying.

The cost is a knock at the door no family wants but is a special privilege of sacrifice and if not borne by some, then who would bear it?

The cost is a lifetime of love.

Freedom isn't Free and the cost is high.

The Fourth of July is a special time to celebrate the freedoms we have, hard fought and won at a great cost. Well we all should enjoy this day, and every day we have to live free, for to do less would be to waste the high price paid that we might.

Robert Stokely

UPDATE: Greyhawk sends this picture from Iraq

Fiddler's Green

Halfway down the trail to Hell,
In a shady meadow green
Are the Souls of all dead troopers camped,
Near a good old-time canteen.
And this eternal resting place
Is known as Fiddlers' Green.
Marching past, straight through to Hell
The Infantry are seen.
Accompanied by the Engineers,
Artillery and Marines,
For none but the shades of Cavalrymen
Dismount at Fiddlers' Green.
Though some go curving down the trail
To seek a warmer scene.
No trooper ever gets to Hell
Ere he's emptied his canteen.
And so rides back to drink again
With friends at Fiddlers' Green.
And so when man and horse go down
Beneath a saber keen,
Or in a roaring charge of fierce melee
You stop a bullet clean,
And the hostiles come to get your scalp,
Just empty your canteen,
And put your pistol to your head
And go to Fiddlers' Green.

Greyhawk responds to Mr Stokely:

If I had simply seen Mike's name and taken the picture myself it wouldn't be quite as cool a story as I'm about to tell. One of my guys was on a trip down south and this was likely taken at one of the fiyahs - they were waypoints on his trip. I'll try and find out for sure next time I talk to him. I first saw the photo myself today, and I can't even describe the chill I got on seeing Mike's name, especially after seeing your 4th of July message just yesterday. I was just looking through a shared computer drive here for some pictures I could send my wife and kids and that was the first one I saw. The guy who took the picture has no connection to the 48th, doesn't know about my web site, and probably has never heard of any of the guys whose names are recorded on that memorial. Such tributes are all too common here, so common that it doesn't occur to most people to take a picture. He was just passing through, probably wanted a momento of another place where he stopped along the way.

If you believe in such coincidences, that's a pretty amazing one in my book. But that chill I mentioned above was mostly because some things are just too coincidental to be purely coincidental.

Both Mahmudiyah and Yusifiyah are now receiving a lot of attention. When you hear of the battle for the Baghdad belts, they are two of the key points. The 3ID has the lead in that part of Iraq - though now in Iraq the Division is referred to as Multi-National Division Central (MND-C) and is basically comprised of most of the surge Brigades announced last Winter.

The last of us got here in late May, the battle wasn't truly joined until mid June, and though I doubt you are hearing much of it we are taking it to the enemy hot and heavy in this AO - so Georgia's own are here carrying on.

Greyhawk

We first heard from Robert Stokely here.

2007-07-04 14:12:25