Number 70 - With a Bullet

You may have noticed that the national and state flags in Kentucky have been flying at half-mast constantly for the last month.

The lowering of the flags has been in honor of soldiers killed in action in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thirteen of them since April 8, their deaths separated in time just enough that flags could not be raised after one funeral before another death brought it back down. All of them were assigned to Fort Campbell, but none of them called Kentucky home.

Until Wednesday.



Army Specialist Jeremy Gullett, 22, of Greenup, in northeastern Kentucky, died in Afghanistan when his vehicle struck an improvised explosive device. He was a member of Fort Campbell's storied 101st Airborne Division, the Screaming Eagles.

He leaves behind a wife and 21-month-old daughter.

He is the first Iraq/Afghanistan casualty from Kentucky since December 31, 2007. That four months and six days without a casualty is the longest we have gone without losing one of our own since a four-month, three-day lull from November 16 2004 to March 19 2005.

For four months and six days, we dared to believe that for Kentucky's sons and daughters at least, the worst was over.

Come to Greenup, John McCain. Come to Greenup to look Specialist Gullett's 21-month-old daughter in the eye and say it to her face:

Tell her your 1,000 Years in Iraq plan will ensure that she, her children, her grandchildren and their grandchildren into perpetuity will be able to die in a pointless, faked-cause war just like her daddy did.

Cross-posted at Watching Those We Chose.