"Salute to fallen medic" / 21 yr. old San Antonio, TX/ KIA

[TexasLawyer]

Salute to fallen medic

Web Posted: 05/06/2006 12:00 AM CDT

Sig Christenson
Express-News Military Writer

http://www.mysanantonio.com/specials/battlefield/stories/MYSA050606.01A.soldier_funeral.36daa1e.html

Cpl. Jason Brent Daniel was described in a brief Army biography as a young man for whom "everything in life was an adventure." That adventure came full circle Friday, as four Percheron mix draft horses pulled his flag-draped casket on a wooden caisson around a bend at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery.


Cpl. Jason Brent Daniel

A toddler cried, but not a word was spoken as Daniel's family, friends and fellow troops stood under a shelter. Then six members of the Fort Sam Houston Honors Platoon placed the casket over his final resting place just a mile from where he trained in the summer of 2004. Three rifle volleys rang out. Taps sounded.

"He joined the Army for the education and sense of patriotism," Fort Sam's commander, Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, said following the burial. "He wanted to be a medic so he could learn how to take care of people."


The casket of Cpl. Jason Brent Daniel is carried
by caisson to his funeral at Fort Sam Houston
National Cemetery. Members of the Patriot Guard Riders
lined the road Friday and held flags as they honored
the San Antonian killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq.

A San Antonio native, Daniel, 21, was killed April 23 with two other soldiers when a roadside bomb detonated in Taji, a town in the Sunni Triangle, long a hotbed of the Iraqi insurgency. He was the 36th medic killed in Gulf War II, Fort Sam spokesman Phil Reidinger said, and the 46th soldier from Fort Hood's 4th Infantry Division to die in Iraq since it began its second tour there late last year.


<snip>

Daniel was known as a quick study and hungry to improve his skills, but learning wasn't his only strong suit. Folks also discovered that if he had $5, he'd send $4 of it to his wife, Monika Villafranca Daniel, an Army Reservist in training as a medic. "They said he was small in stature," Weightman said, "but had a big, huge heart."

[DemoTex]

1. "Three rifle volleys rang out. Taps sounded."

Three volleys from seven rifles: a 21 gun-salute. One salute for each of Jason Brent Daniel's short 21 years. Too sad. RIP "Doc." RIP.

[babylonsister]

2. Just a baby-so sad. nt

[michael_1166]

3. Patriotism creates corpses.

Don't support the military. Don't go there. It's that simple.

[Recursion]

4. Salute

"We yelled for them and they appeared, like smoke above a fire.
They came to us through battles roar, with only one desire.
They came to treat our wounds or give us comfort our last hour
They came to us and risk their lives, through deadly hails of fire.
The Medics came to patched us up and tell us "You're OK."
Whatever made them think that they could save us anyway?
But save they did! And lost their own, in Honor and in Valor.
How many men would we have lost if they had stopped to cower?
A "CMB" is just a badge to many who don't know.
To those who humped the jungle trails, it is a Medal of its own.
These men who wear the "CMB" are heroes to us all.
Heroes to the men who had to give the "MEDIC!" call."
--John Garrison

God rest his soul. Combat medics and Corpsmen are the closest things to angels on earth.

[Ecumenist]

6. Thank you Dsmeg

That is beautiful, just beautiful.. And welcome to DU, you're a treasure with a heart of gold, it seems.:hi:

[acmejack]

5. Rest in Peace, Young Man.

So many young and bright, every generation it seems, the beasts of business demand their due, payable in the lifeblood of our children.

[TexasLawyer]

7. Just think of all that this beautiful young man could have done

if he hadn't been killed by this illegal and immoral war. There are too few stories like this, IMO.

[DemoTex]

8. No sir. There are far too many stories like this one.

And each story shines like the bright shining lies of Mr. Bu$h.

BTW: I know what you mean. I know many MDs who were medics and corpsmen in WW-II, Korea, and Viet Nam. This beautiful young man might have been the cardiologist that saves you or me twenty years hence. His life, like the 2400+, is a tragic loss. Thanks for posting this sad, sad story.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

9. I've worked with trauma surgeons, obstetricians, and anesthesiologists who

had been Special Forces Medics in a previous life. Definitely a different, and highly motivated, breed.

[TexasLawyer]

11. I meant too few stories

in terms of not enough coverage in the newspaper of every single person KIA. Here in Houston, the war dead might get a paragraph on page 12.

For most people Iraq and Afghanistan is a huge abstraction. They don't know anyone there and they have no personal stake.

The more Americans read about losing people like this young man, the more they will push for this madness to end.

There's also not enough media coverage of the physically and mentally wounded who come back.

[DemoTex]

12. I knew what you meant, TL.

My comments were to support you, not to criticize you.

Mac

[guinivere]

10. He was just a kid. Rest peacefully, Cpl. Daniel. nt

[OneBlueSky]

13. there's a similar story behind each of the 2400 deaths of . . .

US military personnel . . . not to mention the 20,000 injured, and the 100,000 or so Iraqis who have been killed . . . they all had families; they all had stories . . .

RIP, Cpl. Daniel . . .

[uppityperson]

14. thank you for the story AND esp the picture too

RIP