Tuesday - September 12, 2006

Semper Fi

In one sense, I positively hate reading stories like this. I think about how I would feel if it were one of my sons. I would be prostrate with grief. I would also be honored to know that a child of mine had shown such courage and devotion to the greater good as well as love of country.

Young people like Pfc. Wolfe have better long range vision than we give them credit for sometimes. Some of them understand what we are doing and what the overall goals are. They understand that “honor” and “duty” are more than just words. Our children are much, much better people than we probably deserve. They usually are.

Marine Felt Calling After 9/11 Attacks
_{(WASHINGTON POST) - Tuesday, September 12, 2006}

Colin Wolfe was in sixth grade, fixated on girls, sports and the challenges of being a preteen, when a group of Marines visited his Manassas [Virginia] elementary school. He returned to his Manassas home that afternoon with their presentation swimming in his head. Perhaps, he told his parents, he might enlist one day.

It was just childhood talk, his parents reasoned. Their son was a skilled ballet dancer, performing since childhood with a local dance company, and he had smarts. Perhaps he would go to college.

Then came Sept. 11, 2001.

Wolfe was 14 when the twin towers fell, and like so many, he watched in horror as the Pentagon burned on cable news channels. He was just a boy, but the call to action that he felt struck deep. In the years that followed, he collected articles depicting the attacks and search for Osama bin Laden. He talked with friends and family about the war on terror and visited the Pentagon and Ground Zero in New York.

And when he graduated from Osbourn High School in Manassas last year, he did the one thing he felt in his heart that was right: He enlisted in the Marines, ready to fight. “Like a lot of kids, he had a sense of wanting to serve his country, but 9/11 crystallized that in him,” said Mark Wolfe, his father.

Pfc. Colin J. Wolfe, 19, was deployed to Iraq in July. He was killed Aug. 30 in Anbar province, when the Humvee in which he was riding struck a roadside bomb.

Yesterday, family and friends gathered at Arlington National Cemetery to honor the slain Marine. His parents picked Sept. 11 for the burial, believing it to be a fitting tribute to a young man who gave his life for his country in Iraq.

“He knew what he was fighting for and what he was all about,” Mark Wolfe said. “He believed he was serving the country, protecting the country. He had made his choice.”

- More on Pfc. Wolfe at WAPO ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 09/12/2006 at 07:30 AM   
Filed Under: • Military •  
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

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It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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