'Voices of the Fallen': Reporting the Story

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Back home, the families' willingness to interrupt their grief to help us was amazing. Some folks ran to the Kinko's, others reduced letters they could have faxed to digital PDFs. Some typed up the handwritten letters, afraid we wouldn't decipher their loved one's scrawl. Jerry and Connie Paulsen of Deer Island, Ore., had promised to drive to town to fax me a letter that Jerry's brother Sgt. Ronald Lee Paulsen wrote them from Iraq shortly before he was killed. Then Connie e-mailed me, saying "we have a foot of snow in the driveway and don't know if we can get down the mountain...." So she and Jerry took digital photos of Ron's letter and e-mailed them, along with a photo of the 53-year-old Guardsman in his vehicle in Iraq.

For some, the task of revisiting the letters and e-mails was too painful. One young widow explained apologetically that "I was really eager to look over all the e-mails ... but with (his) death only being 3 months ago, it was really hard for me ... it was just too soon." She wasn't alone. One mom noted in passing that she wanted to save a voice mail message from her son but couldn't bring herself to listen to it once her son had been killed.

But if there were tears, the families gave a predominant sense of strength. Most were buoyed by the conviction that their son or husband died for a worthy cause. Others drew comfort and strength from their faith in God—or the faith that their dead loved one had had. And clearly the military families drew strength from one another. Look at the Web-based memorials for fallen soldiers, and one sees a network of shared grief. A mother who lost her son writes to console the wife of another.

The following NEWSWEEK staffers contributed reporting to this project:
Dan Ephron
Eve Conant
Jonathan Mummolo
Daren Briscoe
Andy Murr
Catharine Skipp
Gretel Kovach
Sarah Childress
Jac Chebatoris
Jamie Reno
Samantha Hening
Ty Brickhouse

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Posted By: charlesthepoet2003 @ 09/21/2009 1:18:19 PM

======================================
Your Love Will Always Be In My Heart.
======================================

I'll cling on to Your love
in My heart;

I won't let go of Your love
in My heart,

Your love will remain in My
heart forever;

I'll hold on to Your love so
tightly as though it was
made of gold,

Your love will always be My
treasure;

I'll seal up Your love
in My heart,

I'll cherish Your love in My
heart forever;

Your love will always be My
keepsake in My heart,

Not even death itself can
separate Your love in My
heart;

And I won't let Your love
wither or fade away in My
heart,

Your love will always linger
on and on in My heart;

Your love will always be in
My heart forever.

======================================

Do A Web Search On:
Charles H. Miranda -- Or.
charlesthepoet2003
======================
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Posted By: charlesthepoet2003 @ 09/17/2009 5:55:28 PM

=================================
When You Cry; I Cry Too.
=================================

I feel Your pains;

I feel Your sorrow,

I feel Your grief;

I feel Your sadness,

I feel what You are
feeling too;

When You cry, I cry
too;

And it hurts to see
another brother of
mine dying out on
the battlefield,

The whole world is a
battlefield for all of
the Soldiers and
Policemen and Firemen
too;

They say that God
Himself also weep
when We die.

Yes I feel Your pains,

Yes I feel Your sorrow;

Yes I feel Your grief,

Yes I feel Your sadness;

Yes I feel what You
are feeling too,

And Yes when You cry;
I cry too.

================================

Do A Web Search On:
Charles H. Miranda -- Or.
charlesthepoet2003
========================
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Posted By: charlesthepoet2003 @ 09/14/2009 7:46:22 PM

==================================
Follow The Rainbow To Heaven.
==================================

A Soldier had die out on the
battlefield;

Broken hearts are weeping For
Them,

But take comfort of knowing
that God had sent Them a
rainbow from heaven;

The Souls of the Soldiers
have gone to there home
in heaven,

Our Loved One's has follow
God's lovely rainbow in the
sky;

All the way to the end of the
sky.

That leads all the way to the
other end of the Lord's
house in heaven,

So just keep on praying and
trust that God will send us
that same rainbow in the sky;

Where Our Loved One's are
waiting For You and For Me at
the end of the rainbow in
heaven.

===================================

Do A Web Search On:
Charles H. Miranda -- Or.
charlesthepoet2003
=======================