MSM Frenzy As War Toll Hits 4000; Profiles Of Colorado's Lost Heroes

With each name I say a prayer--for the soldiers and their families--and praise their sense of honor and duty to country.

Here are a few of the many names, from the earliest part of the war to the end of December, 2006 (from the Rocky Mountain News)--the bios paint a small but touching picture of each soldier's life, and the link includes a list of those from Colorado killed in the line of duty, as well as those stationed at Fort Carson:

Thomas Slocum, 22, Thornton

Rank: Marine Lance Cpl.

Died after an ambush near Nasiriyah, March 23, 2003.

Bio: "He had no fear," said his mother, Terry Cooper. "He was ornery and always pushing the envelope." Slocum grew up in Thornton and graduated from Skyview High School in 1998. Asked to name his favorite subject in high school, Cooper said, Slocum answered without hesitation: "Girls. Definitely girls."

Randal K. Rosacker, 21, Alamosa

Rank: Marine Cpl.

Died after an ambush in Nasiriyah, March 23, 2003.

Bio: As a boy, Rosacker explored the outdoors, returning home with his pockets filled with new friends.

"He used to catch everything in the river near our house," said his father, Navy Command Master Chief Rod Rosacker, of San Diego.

When he turned 18, the stocky football star had a U.S. flag and bald eagle tattooed on his bicep.
. . .
David R. Staats, 30, Colorado Springs

Rank: Army Staff Sgt.

Died after an explosion in Taji, Dec. 16, 2006.

Bio: Staats' first tour in 2002 was spent in Kuwait. The next year he was sent to Iraq. He then left the military but decided to re-enlist.

"He didn't like civilian life," said his sister, Bethany Staats. "He liked the military; that was his life. It was in his blood." Staats leaves behind a wife and two children.

Seth M. Stanton, 19, Colorado Springs

Rank: Army Pfc.

Died after a bombing near Baghdad, Dec. 17, 2006.

Bio: Stanton had been in Iraq only eight weeks when he was killed. "He could have chosen to go to college. He could have chosen to get a better job, but he chose to stand in harm's way for the sake of others," said the Rev. Mel Waters, a Vietnam veteran who presided at Stanton's service.

The NY Times has an interactive listing of all those killed. A tour of Denver's Fort Logan National Cemetery elicits a quiet understanding and appreciation of the sacrifice of the soldiers who keep this country free:

A world away, dogs bark and traffic hums along city streets. Geese fly overhead, honking and wheeling over Memorial Lake. Beneath their wings all is still, as it always is. Nothing moves but the wind because stillness — motion and quiet — is the way of Fort Logan National Cemetery.

But in that stillness, 93,000 simple eulogies are whispered from the headstones. Especially the newer ones, the headstones that mark the final resting place of 17 men killed in the Iraq War — 17 who are part of the 4,000 men and women whose lives have been taken in combat. It is the latest milestone of staggering loss. Until another, sadder milestone replaces it. And it will. That is the way of war.
. . .
The ground between the graves is mottled with patches of dirty snow, precocious nubs of green grass, and pine cones. All sound — geese honking, cars moving, earth-moving equipment sculpting the land into new burial ground — is gently absorbed by a calm that isn't so much vacuum as vessel. Periodically, the vessel tips and the sound is poured out.

Particularly one sound. A sound that has free rein.

Most days there is an average of 15 funerals at Fort Logan. Old warriors and young warriors. During those funerals, the saddest song in the world is played. And no matter where you are among the sprawling 214 acres, you can hear each trembling note. Some days only minutes separate the end of one Taps and the start of another, as if the air is pausing to clear its throat before allowing a new ceremony of death with honor to commence.

The headstones fan out in all directions in strict military dress- right-dress formation. No matter which way you look, they are perfectly aligned. Marble carved from the earth. Shaped by hand. In rows of manmade precision.

Gateway Pundit brings the disgusting story of anti-war moonbats desecrating an Easter Mass by screaming and spraying fake blood on the churchgoers.