thedrifter
08-19-09, 03:21 PM
August 18, 2009, 5:42 pm
Remembering a Soldier and a Reporter
By James Dao
Cliff Owen/Associated Press A team carries the transfer case containing the remains of Marine Sgt. William J. Cahir of Washington, D.C., off of a transport airplane at Delaware’s Dover Air Force Base on Aug. 15.
He wasn’t your typical Marine Corps recruit, this 34-year-old newspaper reporter and former Congressional aide. Doing 84 situps wasn’t enough; he had to talk his way past skeptical recruiters to get an age waiver. But persistence paid off and William J. Cahir joined the Marines in 2003, astounding friends, family, colleagues and the Washington politicians he covered.
Last Thursday, Sergeant Cahir was killed by an insurgent’s bullet while on a foot patrol in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. He was 40, and obituaries can be read here, here, here and here.
Sergeant Cahir was widely admired not just by aging recruits but also by fellow journalists. A Washington-based correspondent for Newhouse newspapers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, he wrote about boot camp in a front-page article for the Express-Times in Easton, Pa., that got him in hot water with his commanding officers but amused and impressed his editor.
“It wasn’t just a schtick,” the editor, Joseph P. Owens, said. “He signed up.”
Sergeant Cahir served two tours in Iraq before deploying to Afghanistan this year with the 4th Civil Affairs Group. He was by all accounts a good Marine, earning three Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals, including for service in Fallujah where he was a lead turret gunner on more than 140 mounted patrols, according to a medal citation.
Paul Hackett, a Marine reservist who served with Sergeant Cahir in Fallujah, remembered him as cheerful even after he was nearly knocked unconscious by a roadside bomb. “He could have been an officer given his degree from Penn State, but chose to enlist,” Mr. Hackett said.
Sergeant Cahir quit his newspaper job in early 2008 to run for Congress from the district around his hometown, State College, Pa. He lost in the Democratic primary and his campaign will probably be best remembered by the YouTube video video he posted to clarify the pronunciation of his name. (It’s “care.”)
Sergeant Cahir is survived by his wife, Rene Browne, of Alexandria, Va., who is expecting twins. A family friend, Brett Lieberman, said he has been awarded a Purple Heart and will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Ellie
Remembering a Soldier and a Reporter
By James Dao
Cliff Owen/Associated Press A team carries the transfer case containing the remains of Marine Sgt. William J. Cahir of Washington, D.C., off of a transport airplane at Delaware’s Dover Air Force Base on Aug. 15.
He wasn’t your typical Marine Corps recruit, this 34-year-old newspaper reporter and former Congressional aide. Doing 84 situps wasn’t enough; he had to talk his way past skeptical recruiters to get an age waiver. But persistence paid off and William J. Cahir joined the Marines in 2003, astounding friends, family, colleagues and the Washington politicians he covered.
Last Thursday, Sergeant Cahir was killed by an insurgent’s bullet while on a foot patrol in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. He was 40, and obituaries can be read here, here, here and here.
Sergeant Cahir was widely admired not just by aging recruits but also by fellow journalists. A Washington-based correspondent for Newhouse newspapers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, he wrote about boot camp in a front-page article for the Express-Times in Easton, Pa., that got him in hot water with his commanding officers but amused and impressed his editor.
“It wasn’t just a schtick,” the editor, Joseph P. Owens, said. “He signed up.”
Sergeant Cahir served two tours in Iraq before deploying to Afghanistan this year with the 4th Civil Affairs Group. He was by all accounts a good Marine, earning three Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals, including for service in Fallujah where he was a lead turret gunner on more than 140 mounted patrols, according to a medal citation.
Paul Hackett, a Marine reservist who served with Sergeant Cahir in Fallujah, remembered him as cheerful even after he was nearly knocked unconscious by a roadside bomb. “He could have been an officer given his degree from Penn State, but chose to enlist,” Mr. Hackett said.
Sergeant Cahir quit his newspaper job in early 2008 to run for Congress from the district around his hometown, State College, Pa. He lost in the Democratic primary and his campaign will probably be best remembered by the YouTube video video he posted to clarify the pronunciation of his name. (It’s “care.”)
Sergeant Cahir is survived by his wife, Rene Browne, of Alexandria, Va., who is expecting twins. A family friend, Brett Lieberman, said he has been awarded a Purple Heart and will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Ellie