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SSGT. DARREN P. HUBBELL COMES HOME --
Some special thoughts about sacrifice from
Veterans' Advocate Jim Strickland.
SSgt. Darren P. Hubbell comes home.
Veterans' Advocate Jim Strickland provides
regular columns for VA Watchdog dot Org.
If you would like to contact Jim about his
columns, you can email him here...
The archive of Jim's articles
is here...
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The format of the message hasn't changed much
over the years. I suppose that email advisories have taken the place of
Western Union telegrams but beyond that, there's little difference. When
DOD is notifying the family and the public of a KIA, it's always brief
and straight to the point.
DD Identifies Army Casualties
The Department of Defense announced today the death of four soldiers who
were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. They died June 20 in Baghdad,
Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated
near their vehicle. They were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 64th Armor
Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Stewart,
Ga.
Killed were:
Maj. Sid W. Brookshire, 36, of Missouri.
Staff Sgt. Darren P. Hubbell, 38, of Tifton, Ga.
Spc. Joe G. Charfauros Jr., 33, of Rota, Mariana Islands.
Pfc. David J. Bentz III, 20, of Newfield, N.J.
For more information related to this release the media may contact the
Fort Stewart public affairs office at (912) 767-2479.
I awoke yesterday morning to find the above notice from my leadership at
the Patriot Guard Riders group. It was listed as “Short Notice” and told
us that we were needed for a mission...the mission was to escort SSGT
Darren P. Hubbell home to Metter, Georgia from his 12:30 PM arrival at
the Savannah, Georgia airport.
We learned that SSGT Hubbell had left in May for his 4th tour of duty as
a medic in Iraq. He was coming home scarcely a month later.
Short notice on a Thursday morning meant there wouldn't be many PGR
members who could commit to joining us. I live a short distance from
that airport and Metter, GA is home to many of my wife's family. Metter
is one of those seemingly perfect small rural towns in Georgia. With a
population of fewer than 10,000 people, locals proudly display bumper
stickers that say, "Everything's Better in Metter". These are the
flag-wavers, the people who understand that freedom isn't free and
sacrifices are made in every generation to keep American Values what
they are.
The 3rd Infantry Division is here near Savannah. We watched a year ago
as they came home from another tour in Iraq and we felt their pain as
they were notified that their stay at “home”, Ft. Stewart, would be
brief. It seemed that it was only a few weeks that our community was
bustling with soldiers and their families before it was quiet again and
they were gone. If you live near a military installation you know the
feeling of loss when you aren't seeing the soldiers eating at local
restaurants and shopping at the malls. There's an empty place in your
heart that you can't quite describe but you know what it is...all those
young people you saw last month are in harm's way again.
My stepson is currently in Iraq, serving with The Big Red One, the
Army's 1st Infantry Division. He's been promoted recently and we
couldn't be more proud. He understands his mission and although he
hasn't seen United States soil in 2 years, he's committed to doing his
job.
I knew when I opened that email, I would be escorting SSGT Hubbell to
Metter. I really didn't have any choice.
The Patriot Guard Riders were formed up not too many years ago to shield
families from protesters as they honored their military dead. It isn't
talked about much at PGR today but in the beginning, the nut-cases of
Westboro Baptist Church would follow grieving military families around
praising God for another KIA. They would “protest” at the funeral and
shout obscenities, spewing their own particularly hateful brand of
religion. In a lot of ways these folks from Westboro make the Taliban
seem to be a moderate and reasonable group.
A group of Veterans, bikers mostly, decided that had to stop. They began
to form up and insert themselves and their thundering machines between
the Westboro people and the families who deserved some dignity.
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Larry Scott --
