Posted by
laeva65 on Sunday, June 17, 2007 1:03:17 PM
This story is pretty well-written, so I think I'll just let Carol Ann Alaimo of The Arizona Daily Star tell it. Carol Ann?
Why would a soldier who had just returned from war turn right around and offer to go again?
It was a question answered many times over at the funeral of Tucson's most recent war casualty.
Army National Guard Staff Sgt. Charles R. Browning, who
volunteered for the assignment that took his life in Afghanistan, was
buried with military honors at Evergreen Cemetery on Thursday. Despite
100-plus degree heat, nearly 400 people turned out to pay respects.
Friends and comrades said Browning's decision to head back
overseas, not long after he'd finished a 15-month tour in support of
the war in Iraq, wasn't surprising for someone who even as a child
seemed to have soldiering in his blood and a deep sense of duty to his
country.
Browning, 31, believed that by fighting terrorists on foreign
soil, the U.S. military was keeping the homeland safe from further
Sept. 11-style attacks, said Sgt. 1st Class Fernando Basurto,
Browning's platoon sergeant during his first wartime tour.
He used say, 'As long as we're here, they'll be trying to kill us
here and our families will be safe at home,' " Basurto said in an
interview, recalling their conversations overseas.
So, nine months after that mission ended, Browning left his wife
and two daughters again to train for his second tour, Basurto said."
Thank you, Ms Alaimo. That's some pretty sensitive journalism for a newspaper that is as left as they come. Conservatives have called it The Arizona Daily Red Star for years.
But this is a case where the stature of the man and the magnitude of his sacrifice overwhelm all petty political considerations.
There is one more fact about Sgt. Browning that folks might find interesting. He was a man who put it on the line every day of his life. Back home in Florence, AZ, Sgt. Browning was a corrections officer at the Arizona State Prison.
It is a bleak Father's Day for the Brownings, but there are many who are grateful fot this man's life. Some day his daughters will be comforted by the knowledge that their dad was one of the best.