These brave men face hardships unknown to us. They are looked on as traitors to their countrymen, even though their mission is peace. The translators perform a valuable service to the American military, and without them they wouldn’t be able to do what they do.The translators have to follow the troops into hostile territory, and often they are injured or killed.

But the Iraqi translators face real danger. Often they hide their faces, and use aliases and accents to hide their identity. If their identity is discovered, it’s not only themselves who can can to harm. The Iraqi people see them as traitors, and as such, they go after the entire family.

These men have taken up a job that is every bit as tough as being a soldier, but remain behind the scenes. I’ve read many articles that mention a lost translator, but the writers rarely mention the mens’ names. So take a moment to give a thought and a prayer to the Iraqi translators who have dedicated themselves to doing what they think is right, even if their entire country is against them.

For more about the Iraqi translators, click here.

The picture says it all. Former soldier Shaun Clark made a promise to tattoo the name of every soldier lost in Afghanistan, and he’s holding true to that promise. He now has 232 names permanently inked onto his back.

Mr Clark, who served with the 8th Battalion Light Infantry Regiment from 1989 to 1996, was waiting in the tattooist’s chair at 11am this morning to carry out his painful pledge.

The first name was etched on his body just as the traditional Armistice Day two-minute silence began.

He said: ‘I don’t mind suffering for a few days if I can let the lads know that people really care about what they’re doing out there, and raise some money for the guys coming home wounded as well.

‘The family thought I was mad to begin with, but they’ve come round to the idea now, and my wife is backing me all the way.’

The married father-of-two from Doncaster hopes his challenge will raise £500 for the charity Help for Heroes.

He plans on updating the sombre list every year on Remembrance Day if required.

Before his ordeal began, Mr Clark said: ‘It’s going to be painful business but it’s nothing compared to what the troops are going through every single day on the front line.’

He added: ‘I know it’s a bit extreme covering the top half of your body front and back with 223 names, but it’s my way of honouring all those men and women and it’ll be there as a memorial for as long as I live.’
Mr Clark

Mr Clark hopes to raise £500 for Help4Heroes through his ordeal

Mr Clark said: ‘I wanted to do something to raise money for the heroes who still need help and to honour the memory of the fallen.

‘I’ve still lots of friends from my days in the Army over in Afghanistan and there’s lots of Donny lads out there as well.

‘Lots of people do things to raise money but I wanted to do something different and something permanent.

‘It’s not just about raising money – it’s also about letting these lads know that people care about what they’re doing.’ (DailyMail.co.uk)

After hospitalizations in Guam and San Francisco, and several of the twenty-two surgeries he would undergo, he was discharged in September 1945. On October 5, at the age of seventeen, he received the Medal of Honor from President Harry Truman, making him the youngest recipient since the Civil War. Then, as he had promised his mother years before, he went back to school—a ninth grader wearing the Medal of Honor around his neck. He later graduated from high school and earned a college degree. His book, Indestructible, was published in 2006.(MSNBC

Wow. What a story. This was quite the man. It was incredibly lucky that the one soldier saw that he was still alive, even after suffering those extensive injuries. People like this really are an inspiration.

Click here to read her essay.

The Price of Freedom from Chuck Holton on Vimeo.
On August 16, I posted a blog called “They Call them Heroes” about a medevac mission to Wardak province. On that mission, two men from the 101st Airborne were killed and three more wounded in an IED blast during a combat resupply mission. I related that the dead are referred to over the radio net as “Heroes”, and rightly so.

I told the story of this mission when I was asked to speak at a church in Columbus, Ga., a few weeks ago. For that service, I put together the above video from that mission. Donnie’s feet are the last thing you see.(source)

Harry Patch was a young apprentice plumber when war broke out and was called into service in 1916. He didn’t agree with war and was reluctant to go.

Born in southwest England in 1898, Mr. Patch was a teenage apprentice plumber when he was called up for military service in 1916. After training, he was sent to the trenches as a machine-gunner in the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry.

The five-man Lewis gun team had a pact to try not to kill any enemy soldiers, but to aim at their legs unless it came down to killing or being killed, he said.

Mr. Patch was part of the third battle of Ypres in Belgium. The offensive began on July 31, 1917, and it rained all but three days of August. It was not until Nov. 6, 1917, that British and Canadian forces had progressed five miles to capture what was left of the village of Passchendaele. The cost was 325,000 Allied casualties and 260,000 Germans.

Mr. Patch’s war had ended on Sept. 22, when he was seriously wounded by shrapnel, which killed three other members of his machine-gun team.

“My reaction was terrible; it was losing a part of my life,” he said.

After losing the majority of his team, Patch was taken to a hospital, where he had to have the shrapnel removed from his body without the aid of anesthesia. He and the other machine gun team survivor both agreed never to share the details of their comrades deaths with the families. For them it was too horrible to share.

World War I was a brutal and grisly event – a dark time in world history. The advent of new weapons technology meant that the killing could be done with horrific efficiency. It was war in a way that no one ever dreamed of being possible. This post is in memory of, not only Harry Patch, but all the brave soldiers who endured hell in the trenches.

Click here to read the entire article about Harry Patch. Defininely read it.

BBC News – The Art Fund charity says there is also support for issuing a series of stamps, dedicated to each person who has died, by official war artist Steve McQueen.

Among the 2,082 adults it surveyed in January, 70% backed such an idea.

The Royal Mail has so far declined the idea of issuing the stamps, saying a period of reflection is needed.

Mr McQueen has created the stamps in his work Queen and Country, each dedicated to a member of the armed forces who has lost their life in Iraq.

He is now calling for Royal Mail to issue them for public use.

According to the survey for The Art Fund, seven out of 10 Britons think the stamps would be a fitting way to pay tribute to the 175 British servicemen and women killed in Iraq since the conflict began in 2003.

David Barrie, director of The Art Fund, said: “I very much hope Royal Mail will recognise the strength of support for the issue of the stamps, coming as it does both from the relatives of those who have lost their lives in Iraq and from the wider British public.”

A Royal Mail spokesman said that the role and sacrifice of Britain’s servicemen and women played a key role in its special stamps programme every year.

But he said Royal Mail believed that “a period of reflection would be required to do justice to a subject of such gravity as the current and ongoing conflict in Iraq, and any other conflict”.

An online petition to make the stamps public has been organised by The Art Fund and the Queen and Country exhibition is on display at London’s Imperial War Museum. (source)

I personally think that this is a great idea. We all need to remember these brave people who died for something they believed in. I know there continues to be debate and controversy over whether the war being fought is right or noble. But when these people offer themselves to their home country and they are sent far from home to die in the field, they deserve everything we can give their memory. I think the U.S. should consider doing the same idea (if it hasn’t been mentioned already – a quick Google search didn’t reveal any soldier stamps).

This is worth seeing!