1AD public affairs officer Maj. Gerken's response to grieving families

[lebkuchen]

“I think it does a disservice to the soldiers and more importantly their families to infer that this would not have happened had the deployment not been extended,” Gercken said. “Their sacrifice and the work they were accomplishing is too important to be covered up by speculation on what might have happened.”

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=21873

So this is what army leadership has devolved into under the Bush administration...

[YankeeFan]

1. That's Not I Read

I caught this part:

“I can tell you that the soldiers were part of a task force that was making the roads in the area safe for citizens and pilgrims to the holy sites in the area by clearing the roads of IEDs,” Maj. David Gercken, the 1st AD public affairs officer in Baghdad, told Stars and Stripes in an e-mail. “This effort will be on-going. A vehicle approached the soldiers and the driver detonated the vehicle as soon as he was close enough to inflict damage.”

They felt the loss too. While their grief will never equal the families of the soldiers, they hurt too.