LongWire
03-03-2011, 02:23
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/01/AR2011030106355.html
Lt. Gen. John Kelly, who lost son to war, says U.S. largely unaware of sacrifice
Before he addressed the crowd that had assembled in the St. Louis Hyatt Regency ballroom last November, Lt. Gen. John F. Kelly had one request. "Please don't mention my son," he asked the Marine Corps officer introducing him.
Four days earlier, 2nd Lt. Robert M. Kelly , 29, had stepped on a land mine while leading a platoon of Marines in southern Afghanistan. He was killed instantly.
Without once referring to his son's death, the general delivered a passionate and at times angry speech about the military's sacrifices and its troops' growing sense of isolation from society.
"Their struggle is your struggle," he told the ballroom crowd of former Marines and local business people. "If anyone thinks you can somehow thank them for their service, and not support the cause for which they fight - our country - these people are lying to themselves. . . . More important, they are slighting our warriors and mocking their commitment to this nation."
Kelly is the most senior U.S. military officer to lose a son or daughter in Iraq or Afghanistan. He was giving voice to a growing concern among soldiers and Marines: The American public is largely unaware of the price its military pays to fight the United States' distant conflicts. Less than 1 percent of the population serves in uniform at a time when the country is engaged in one of the longest periods of sustained combat in its history.
President Obama devoted only six sentences to the war in Afghanistan in his State of the Union address in January. The 25-second standing ovation that lawmakers lavished on the troops lasted almost as long as the president's war remarks.
Kelly has largely shunned public attention since his speech and his son's death. He discussed his speech and his son to provide insight into the lives and the burdens of military families.
"We are only one of 5,500 American families who have suffered the loss of a child in this war," he said in an e-mail. "The death of my boy simply cannot be made to seem any more tragic than the others."
On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said he had nominated Kelly to be his senior military assistant, a powerful position by virtue of its minute-by-minute proximity to the Pentagon chief. He would serve as a key liaison between the defense secretary and the top brass.
As in many military families, Kelly's two sons followed their father into the Marine Corps. The three Kelly men have participated in 11 combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade.
As one retired Marine Corps general noted in a condolence letter to Kelly a few days after his son's death: "Service to and sacrifice for the nation have become a legacy affair for a relatively small number of families."
'Living on luck'
A few days after graduating from Florida State University in 2003, Robert Kelly surprised his family by enlisting in the Marine Corps. His elder brother, John, had joined as an officer two years earlier. Their father was leading Marines in Iraq.
Page 2 of 5
The war was something new in early 2003, and like most Americans, Robert had spent the spring glued to the live television coverage of U.S. tanks converging on Baghdad.
One year later, Robert was a private first class fighting house to house in the battle for Fallujah, the largest and bloodiest urban battle for U.S. troops since Vietnam.
On the night the offensive began, the elder Kelly came home early from work and urged his wife to steel herself for the worst. "Robert is right in the middle of it," he told her.
Robert emerged from the three-week assault physically unscathed, but shaken by the violence. Six Marines in his 150-man company were killed, three dozen were wounded and the rest suffered a psychological toll. By this point, the war was no longer being beamed home to the United States on cable television.
"It was weird to read mail again, a reminder that other people's lives go on while I am here," he wrote in a letter dated Nov. 19, 2004, to his best friend from high school. "Things have not been going so well. I am having a lot of trouble dealing with this [expletive]. It is hard to explain right now. . . . I just want to go home and see my family and friends. I really want to sit down with my dad and talk."
Robert told his father that he was especially bothered by an incident in which his platoon was taking fire from insurgents in an underground bunker. The Marines' interpreter screamed at them to surrender. When they continued to shoot, Robert's unit used explosives to blow them out of the bunker.
"He mentioned that it must have been a horrible way to die," his father recalled. "It wasn't as clean as he thought it would be. He felt bad about the whole thing, and I told him that was human."
In 2008, Robert moved from the enlisted to the officer ranks and was commissioned as a second lieutenant. Because his father was deployed as commander of U.S. forces in western Iraq, Robert's brother administered the oath. The change meant Robert would be responsible for the lives of three-dozen Marines.
Robert, who inherited his father's prominent nose, bushy eyebrows and sly smile, was seven years older than most second lieutenants and one of the few platoon leaders in his brigade with combat experience.
Before his platoon deployed last September, Robert sent a blast e-mail to his friends and family. If people were wondering what to put in care packages, batteries, wet wipes and protein bars were best, he wrote. A simple letter from home was "always welcome."
Mostly, though, he wanted his friends and family to care about a war that had largely faded from the public's consciousness. The midterm congressional elections were only a month away. Hardly any candidates were talking about Afghanistan. Less than 2 percent of voters rated it their top issue.
"Try to keep your eye on the news," Robert wrote from Camp Pendleton, Calif. "It will be good to know that people are paying attention to what the 32 Marines with me will be accomplishing."
Page 3 of 5
Robert's platoon occupied an isolated patrol base in Sangin district, an area where British forces had been losing ground to the Taliban. Soldiers and Marines at larger established bases speak to their families almost daily on cellphones. At Robert's isolated patrol base, there was no cellphone coverage or Internet service, just "ammo and big rats," he said in a rare letter home.
Throughout the fall, his 1,000-man battalion took part in some of the most intense fighting of the 10-year-old war, killing dozens of Taliban and slowly pushing them back. Robert's father followed his son's battalion over the Pentagon's classified Internet.
"I know you guys have taken some licks in the last few days," the elder Kelly wrote in a letter dated Oct. 15. As a platoon commander, Robert was now responsible for every patrol that left the base. Kelly knew it was an enormous burden.
"Robert you will likely lose one or more of your precious Marines if you haven't already," the elder Kelly continued. "Do not let the men mope or dwell on the loss. . . .Do not let them ever enjoy the killing or hate their enemy. It is impossible to take the emotion out of it, but try and keep it as impersonal and mechanical as you can. The Taliban have their job to do and we have ours. That's it. . . . Combat is so inhumane; you must help your men maintain their humanity as well as their sense of perspective and proportion."
On the day Kelly mailed the letter to his son, Lance Cpl. Colin Faust, one of Robert's Marines, stepped on a land mine and lost part of his left leg. The next day, a sergeant in Robert's platoon was killed and a lance corporal lost his right arm when a land mine detonated under them.
Lt. Gen. John Kelly, who lost son to war, says U.S. largely unaware of sacrifice
Before he addressed the crowd that had assembled in the St. Louis Hyatt Regency ballroom last November, Lt. Gen. John F. Kelly had one request. "Please don't mention my son," he asked the Marine Corps officer introducing him.
Four days earlier, 2nd Lt. Robert M. Kelly , 29, had stepped on a land mine while leading a platoon of Marines in southern Afghanistan. He was killed instantly.
Without once referring to his son's death, the general delivered a passionate and at times angry speech about the military's sacrifices and its troops' growing sense of isolation from society.
"Their struggle is your struggle," he told the ballroom crowd of former Marines and local business people. "If anyone thinks you can somehow thank them for their service, and not support the cause for which they fight - our country - these people are lying to themselves. . . . More important, they are slighting our warriors and mocking their commitment to this nation."
Kelly is the most senior U.S. military officer to lose a son or daughter in Iraq or Afghanistan. He was giving voice to a growing concern among soldiers and Marines: The American public is largely unaware of the price its military pays to fight the United States' distant conflicts. Less than 1 percent of the population serves in uniform at a time when the country is engaged in one of the longest periods of sustained combat in its history.
President Obama devoted only six sentences to the war in Afghanistan in his State of the Union address in January. The 25-second standing ovation that lawmakers lavished on the troops lasted almost as long as the president's war remarks.
Kelly has largely shunned public attention since his speech and his son's death. He discussed his speech and his son to provide insight into the lives and the burdens of military families.
"We are only one of 5,500 American families who have suffered the loss of a child in this war," he said in an e-mail. "The death of my boy simply cannot be made to seem any more tragic than the others."
On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said he had nominated Kelly to be his senior military assistant, a powerful position by virtue of its minute-by-minute proximity to the Pentagon chief. He would serve as a key liaison between the defense secretary and the top brass.
As in many military families, Kelly's two sons followed their father into the Marine Corps. The three Kelly men have participated in 11 combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade.
As one retired Marine Corps general noted in a condolence letter to Kelly a few days after his son's death: "Service to and sacrifice for the nation have become a legacy affair for a relatively small number of families."
'Living on luck'
A few days after graduating from Florida State University in 2003, Robert Kelly surprised his family by enlisting in the Marine Corps. His elder brother, John, had joined as an officer two years earlier. Their father was leading Marines in Iraq.
Page 2 of 5
The war was something new in early 2003, and like most Americans, Robert had spent the spring glued to the live television coverage of U.S. tanks converging on Baghdad.
One year later, Robert was a private first class fighting house to house in the battle for Fallujah, the largest and bloodiest urban battle for U.S. troops since Vietnam.
On the night the offensive began, the elder Kelly came home early from work and urged his wife to steel herself for the worst. "Robert is right in the middle of it," he told her.
Robert emerged from the three-week assault physically unscathed, but shaken by the violence. Six Marines in his 150-man company were killed, three dozen were wounded and the rest suffered a psychological toll. By this point, the war was no longer being beamed home to the United States on cable television.
"It was weird to read mail again, a reminder that other people's lives go on while I am here," he wrote in a letter dated Nov. 19, 2004, to his best friend from high school. "Things have not been going so well. I am having a lot of trouble dealing with this [expletive]. It is hard to explain right now. . . . I just want to go home and see my family and friends. I really want to sit down with my dad and talk."
Robert told his father that he was especially bothered by an incident in which his platoon was taking fire from insurgents in an underground bunker. The Marines' interpreter screamed at them to surrender. When they continued to shoot, Robert's unit used explosives to blow them out of the bunker.
"He mentioned that it must have been a horrible way to die," his father recalled. "It wasn't as clean as he thought it would be. He felt bad about the whole thing, and I told him that was human."
In 2008, Robert moved from the enlisted to the officer ranks and was commissioned as a second lieutenant. Because his father was deployed as commander of U.S. forces in western Iraq, Robert's brother administered the oath. The change meant Robert would be responsible for the lives of three-dozen Marines.
Robert, who inherited his father's prominent nose, bushy eyebrows and sly smile, was seven years older than most second lieutenants and one of the few platoon leaders in his brigade with combat experience.
Before his platoon deployed last September, Robert sent a blast e-mail to his friends and family. If people were wondering what to put in care packages, batteries, wet wipes and protein bars were best, he wrote. A simple letter from home was "always welcome."
Mostly, though, he wanted his friends and family to care about a war that had largely faded from the public's consciousness. The midterm congressional elections were only a month away. Hardly any candidates were talking about Afghanistan. Less than 2 percent of voters rated it their top issue.
"Try to keep your eye on the news," Robert wrote from Camp Pendleton, Calif. "It will be good to know that people are paying attention to what the 32 Marines with me will be accomplishing."
Page 3 of 5
Robert's platoon occupied an isolated patrol base in Sangin district, an area where British forces had been losing ground to the Taliban. Soldiers and Marines at larger established bases speak to their families almost daily on cellphones. At Robert's isolated patrol base, there was no cellphone coverage or Internet service, just "ammo and big rats," he said in a rare letter home.
Throughout the fall, his 1,000-man battalion took part in some of the most intense fighting of the 10-year-old war, killing dozens of Taliban and slowly pushing them back. Robert's father followed his son's battalion over the Pentagon's classified Internet.
"I know you guys have taken some licks in the last few days," the elder Kelly wrote in a letter dated Oct. 15. As a platoon commander, Robert was now responsible for every patrol that left the base. Kelly knew it was an enormous burden.
"Robert you will likely lose one or more of your precious Marines if you haven't already," the elder Kelly continued. "Do not let the men mope or dwell on the loss. . . .Do not let them ever enjoy the killing or hate their enemy. It is impossible to take the emotion out of it, but try and keep it as impersonal and mechanical as you can. The Taliban have their job to do and we have ours. That's it. . . . Combat is so inhumane; you must help your men maintain their humanity as well as their sense of perspective and proportion."
On the day Kelly mailed the letter to his son, Lance Cpl. Colin Faust, one of Robert's Marines, stepped on a land mine and lost part of his left leg. The next day, a sergeant in Robert's platoon was killed and a lance corporal lost his right arm when a land mine detonated under them.