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Monday, February 4, 2008

Mother of three dies in Iraq

As some of you may know, I have tracked "nonhostile" deaths among U.S. troops in Iraq for more than four years, including those caused by accidents, illness, suicides. There was another reported today (the number is approaching 900 now) and I just came across one from last week: a 41-year-old mother of three from the Roanoke, Virginia, area, named Tracy Birkman, an Army mechanic. Cause of death not yet released (as per norm). Two of her three sons are in Middle School.

This was the reaction of her father, Jerald Griffith, as quoted by The Washington Post: "She's over there in a war we shouldn't even be involved in, on her third tour." Another press report mentioned that she been interviewed in an Army public affairs video in 2006 and said, "I think professionally it should have been easier for me. It would go easier if I was probably a male, to tell the truth. I wouldn't have as much trouble or hassles that I get all the time."

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I found this very touching...this poor woman, on her THIRD tour, having to take all kinds of shit from her so-called colleagues, leaving hr three kids motherless...and for what?
I can't bear these stories and they go on and on..

Anonymous said...

I just cannot imagine how a car mechanic is at risk in this war...She had to be in the Green Zone most of the time, so there is something else going on here...Blackwater???

One Fly said...

I want these people home so bad. These neo-muderers do what ever they want because they can and those who are supposedly on my side enable them. There is some more going on here than meets the eye.

Anonymous said...

Is the military so strapped that they need to sacrifice a 41-year old mother of three or anyone for that matter? I wonder, that during her three tours in Iraq, if she found any of those pesky WMD that led these people to invade, die, and occupy Iraq? And what are we defending anyway?

Anonymous said...

Troop suicides are the highest they've been ever...up 20% last 6 months. We need revolution NOW!!

Anonymous said...

It is important to remember "mommy" volunteered to be a soldier. She went to Iraq three times on her own legs to fight for Israeli oil.

You can't fix stupid any other way.

Anonymous said...

well, she went one time on her own legs. The third time she was sprinting to get over there, I'm sure.

I don't understand why we don't rotate the military personnel from non-hostile areas into Iraq instead of sending the same soldiers back over and over.