thedrifter
06-01-05, 08:19 AM
Wednesday, June 1, 2005
Marine's notes to P-I reporter end with tragic postscript
By MIKE BARBER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Each time I talk to the families of the latest casualties of the Iraq war, I can't help but summon shades from my past.
I made peace with them a long time ago but they still emanate from my own experiences with the military, from the Army by birth, to the Marine Corps by choice -- and from the faces of three schoolmates lined up across a page of my high school yearbook:
Marine Pfcs. Barry L. Eichelberger, Ronald C. Conley and Terry L. Taylor. Each died in Vietnam within weeks of one another one horrible spring in 1969. The drumbeat of their loss devastated the small high school in Pennsylvania's agricultural country from which I graduated.
This week I'll add another name and photo of someone I knew to the page: Marine Cpl. Jeff Starr of Snohomish.
He was killed in Iraq on Memorial Day. A Pentagon news release of his death late yesterday said he died from small-arms fire while in combat against enemy forces near Ar Ramadi, Iraq.
Jeff celebrated his 22nd birthday there on May 25. He was most upbeat about coming home for good in three weeks, and leaving the Marine Corps in August to go to college. He joined the Marines on Aug. 19, 2001, three weeks before Sept. 11 changed the world, and was due to get out this August.
He is the sixth member of the armed forces with strong ties to this state to die in Iraq in May.
Five Fort Lewis soldiers died in May from wounds received in Iraq:
Spc. Phillip Sayles, 26, of Jacksonville, Ark., was killed May 28. First Lt. Aaron N. Seesan, 25, Massillon, Ohio; Spc. Tyler L. Creamean, 21, also of Jacksonville, Ark.; and Sgt. Benjamin C. Morton, 24, of Wright, Kan., were killed May 22. First Sgt. Michael Bordelon, 37, of St. Mary's Parish, La., died May 10 of wounds suffered April 23.
With Jeff Starr's death, 97 men and women in the U.S. armed forces with strong ties to this state have been killed in Iraq since the war began March 19, 2003. Nationwide, nearly 1,660 have been killed in the same time frame.
It's painful to write about any of them -- mostly young men and women and some with young families at home. I've been writing about them since the Iraq war began two years ago. Every day, I check the Pentagon's Web site for a new list of the dead. Each month, I chronicle the loss.
They were all strangers until death drew me to their families. Not Jeff Starr.
When I met Jeff on April 19, 2004, he was a 20-year-old lance corporal who e-mailed me. He and his fellow Marines from Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines were on the front lines of the hellhole in Fallujah.
Jeff told me that he and 13 other Marines "were in an armored vehicle when it caught fire and exploded behind enemy lines.
"We took cover in a house and were pinned down by hundreds of insurgents before our reinforcements came. Our (lieutenant) was injured, and another Marine was killed."
Jeff was hopping mad in the aftermath, not for himself but on behalf of fellow Marines. He believed a foreign press account of that battle did not recognize those who made great sacrifices.
"I want my peers who think that this stuff doesn't happen to realize that there are good men our age fighting and dying for their freedom," he said.
On April 29, 2004, he told me, "My battalion has been pulled out of Fallujah as of yesterday so that the Iraqi security forces can try and control that city. I think we are giving them two weeks to see if they can do it, if they can't we might go back ... you know how rumors can fly."
Jeff never was able to sit down for an interview and over time cooled down over the issue. He put me in touch with his parents, Brian and Shellie Starr of Snohomish, as a way to stay in touch with him if things over there got too hectic.
"I wasn't able to tell my parents that I contacted the Seattle P-I, so if you contacted them they might be a little lost," Jeff said a little sheepishly.
They weren't though, when I phoned last year. His mom was amused. She sounded like Jeff.
A year later, after two six-month tours of duty that had sent him to Fallujah and Ar Ramadi, Jeff felt that he had done his share for his country.
Those are the first things his mom said when I phoned yesterday to offer my regrets and to gauge whether I even could write this.
"He felt he had done his part and that was it," Shellie Starr said.
His enlistment would have been up this August. "A year ago they said if he would re-enlist, he wouldn't have to redeploy with his unit (to Iraq in February 2005)," she said.
"They offered him a $25,000 bonus to re-enlist. They liked him; he was a good Marine. But he said, 'No, send me back to Iraq because I don't want to reup,' " she recalled.
"He wanted to start the next part of his life."
Jeff planned to go to college, study psychology and possibly go into law enforcement.
Jeff's sister Hillary is in medical school, and his younger sister, Emily, is a high school sophomore.
Jeff's dad is a certified public accountant in Snohomish.
"Me, I've just been a mom. That's all I've been," Shellie Starr said, her voice breaking. She sent her son a birthday package last week. "I don't know if he ever got it," she said yesterday.
Jeff's mom last spoke to her son by phone on May 20, when he was upbeat about the short time he had left before he could return home.
A day after spending a Memorial Day reflecting on the sacrifices of others, Shellie and Brian Starr had to go about the terrible business of thinking about their own.
I couldn't help thinking about Barry and Ron and Terry's names, now on a memorial wall in Washington, D.C. Somewhere, I hear Shellie Starr's voice echoing from my own past experiences and losses.
"We have to go to the cemetery this afternoon," Jeff's mother said, "and get a grave for him."
LIST OF CASUALTIES
Each month the P-I remembers the servicemen and servicewomen with ties to Washington who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For a list of those with ties to the state who have died, visit www.seattlepi.com/local/162597_casualtiesww.html
For a national list, visit www.militarycity.com/valor/honor.html
Ellie
Marine's notes to P-I reporter end with tragic postscript
By MIKE BARBER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Each time I talk to the families of the latest casualties of the Iraq war, I can't help but summon shades from my past.
I made peace with them a long time ago but they still emanate from my own experiences with the military, from the Army by birth, to the Marine Corps by choice -- and from the faces of three schoolmates lined up across a page of my high school yearbook:
Marine Pfcs. Barry L. Eichelberger, Ronald C. Conley and Terry L. Taylor. Each died in Vietnam within weeks of one another one horrible spring in 1969. The drumbeat of their loss devastated the small high school in Pennsylvania's agricultural country from which I graduated.
This week I'll add another name and photo of someone I knew to the page: Marine Cpl. Jeff Starr of Snohomish.
He was killed in Iraq on Memorial Day. A Pentagon news release of his death late yesterday said he died from small-arms fire while in combat against enemy forces near Ar Ramadi, Iraq.
Jeff celebrated his 22nd birthday there on May 25. He was most upbeat about coming home for good in three weeks, and leaving the Marine Corps in August to go to college. He joined the Marines on Aug. 19, 2001, three weeks before Sept. 11 changed the world, and was due to get out this August.
He is the sixth member of the armed forces with strong ties to this state to die in Iraq in May.
Five Fort Lewis soldiers died in May from wounds received in Iraq:
Spc. Phillip Sayles, 26, of Jacksonville, Ark., was killed May 28. First Lt. Aaron N. Seesan, 25, Massillon, Ohio; Spc. Tyler L. Creamean, 21, also of Jacksonville, Ark.; and Sgt. Benjamin C. Morton, 24, of Wright, Kan., were killed May 22. First Sgt. Michael Bordelon, 37, of St. Mary's Parish, La., died May 10 of wounds suffered April 23.
With Jeff Starr's death, 97 men and women in the U.S. armed forces with strong ties to this state have been killed in Iraq since the war began March 19, 2003. Nationwide, nearly 1,660 have been killed in the same time frame.
It's painful to write about any of them -- mostly young men and women and some with young families at home. I've been writing about them since the Iraq war began two years ago. Every day, I check the Pentagon's Web site for a new list of the dead. Each month, I chronicle the loss.
They were all strangers until death drew me to their families. Not Jeff Starr.
When I met Jeff on April 19, 2004, he was a 20-year-old lance corporal who e-mailed me. He and his fellow Marines from Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines were on the front lines of the hellhole in Fallujah.
Jeff told me that he and 13 other Marines "were in an armored vehicle when it caught fire and exploded behind enemy lines.
"We took cover in a house and were pinned down by hundreds of insurgents before our reinforcements came. Our (lieutenant) was injured, and another Marine was killed."
Jeff was hopping mad in the aftermath, not for himself but on behalf of fellow Marines. He believed a foreign press account of that battle did not recognize those who made great sacrifices.
"I want my peers who think that this stuff doesn't happen to realize that there are good men our age fighting and dying for their freedom," he said.
On April 29, 2004, he told me, "My battalion has been pulled out of Fallujah as of yesterday so that the Iraqi security forces can try and control that city. I think we are giving them two weeks to see if they can do it, if they can't we might go back ... you know how rumors can fly."
Jeff never was able to sit down for an interview and over time cooled down over the issue. He put me in touch with his parents, Brian and Shellie Starr of Snohomish, as a way to stay in touch with him if things over there got too hectic.
"I wasn't able to tell my parents that I contacted the Seattle P-I, so if you contacted them they might be a little lost," Jeff said a little sheepishly.
They weren't though, when I phoned last year. His mom was amused. She sounded like Jeff.
A year later, after two six-month tours of duty that had sent him to Fallujah and Ar Ramadi, Jeff felt that he had done his share for his country.
Those are the first things his mom said when I phoned yesterday to offer my regrets and to gauge whether I even could write this.
"He felt he had done his part and that was it," Shellie Starr said.
His enlistment would have been up this August. "A year ago they said if he would re-enlist, he wouldn't have to redeploy with his unit (to Iraq in February 2005)," she said.
"They offered him a $25,000 bonus to re-enlist. They liked him; he was a good Marine. But he said, 'No, send me back to Iraq because I don't want to reup,' " she recalled.
"He wanted to start the next part of his life."
Jeff planned to go to college, study psychology and possibly go into law enforcement.
Jeff's sister Hillary is in medical school, and his younger sister, Emily, is a high school sophomore.
Jeff's dad is a certified public accountant in Snohomish.
"Me, I've just been a mom. That's all I've been," Shellie Starr said, her voice breaking. She sent her son a birthday package last week. "I don't know if he ever got it," she said yesterday.
Jeff's mom last spoke to her son by phone on May 20, when he was upbeat about the short time he had left before he could return home.
A day after spending a Memorial Day reflecting on the sacrifices of others, Shellie and Brian Starr had to go about the terrible business of thinking about their own.
I couldn't help thinking about Barry and Ron and Terry's names, now on a memorial wall in Washington, D.C. Somewhere, I hear Shellie Starr's voice echoing from my own past experiences and losses.
"We have to go to the cemetery this afternoon," Jeff's mother said, "and get a grave for him."
LIST OF CASUALTIES
Each month the P-I remembers the servicemen and servicewomen with ties to Washington who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For a list of those with ties to the state who have died, visit www.seattlepi.com/local/162597_casualtiesww.html
For a national list, visit www.militarycity.com/valor/honor.html
Ellie