Death of a Soldier
Just read this powerful article about the life and death of Army Staff Sgt. Darrell Ray Griffin, Jr. E-Mails Reveal a Fallen Soldier's Story. Sgt. Griffin was killed by a sniper in Sadr City on March 21, 2007 while standing in the hatch of his Stryker vehicle. Embedded journalist Alex Kingsbury had met with and interviewed him extensively just a few days before.
Sgt. Griffin sounds like an extremely bright individual who approached seriously the question of who he was, and why he was there, and who struggled to reconcile the horror of his war experience with his vision of what he should strive for in his own life. He deserves to be remembered.
2 comments:
SSG Darrell R. Griffin, JR. ("Skip") was my son. He was a great son and a great soldier. We would spend may hours discussing philosophy. He was strong mentally, physically and spiritually.
With two sons and one daughter of my own I can only recoil in horror at the thought of losing one of them. Your comment brought tears to my eyes.
Your son sounds like a wonderful young man with a complex, inquisitive, restless intellect and the capacity to entertain and weigh all possibilities. These are very rare qualities and their loss is America's loss. I hope you succeed in publishing his writings and biography. When I look at all the young people in America who think that having "attitude" and accumulating material things and obsessing about celebrities and self-gratification is "keeping it real", and then compare them to someone like Skip, I find them wanting.
May you and your family find peace and comfort in the knowledge that Skip touched so many people in a positive way.
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