he really DOES sound like everyone's best bud, someone you could both depend on AND have fun with. i know i would have liked to have a beverage with him (and yup, i'm crying again)
Family grieves for soldier killed days before his Iraq tour ended
By John Christoffersen, Associated Press Writer December 2, 2006
SALEM, Conn. --Sharon Hamill was home alone, sitting at the table eating lunch when she was startled by a noise around the garage. Then the doorbell rang.
She looked through the tinted window and spotted a green uniform. It must be her son Jason, an Army captain due home any day from Iraq who had a reputation for pulling pranks.
"I went to the door to let him in," Sharon Hamill said. "When I saw two men in uniform, I knew what it was. They looked at me and shook their head."
Jason was dead. He and two other soldiers were killed Nov. 26 in Baghdad by a roadside bomb while riding in an armored vehicle.
"In our eyes, he was a hero," his mother said Wednesday, fighting back tears.
Hamill's family is among the latest to grieve in a war that has taken the lives of nearly 3,000 U.S. service members and lasted longer than America's participation in World War II.
Hamill, 31, had spent a year in Iraq clearing the type of bomb that killed him and many other American troops.
"The hard part is finding the bombs," he wrote in an e-mail to his family in January. "They're very creative at hiding them but we have tons of technology and techniques to find them."
Hamill, a triplet, grew up in Salem, a tiny rural town in eastern Connecticut still sprinkled with farms. He wrestled in high school and played the drums in the band.
That's when Jon Stadler met Hamill and quickly became friends. When Hamill was around, everyone knew something funny would happen.
On a dare Hamill jumped in a frigid lake on New Year's Eve. He and Stadler took the wheels off a friend's car and plastered it with bumper stickers. Another time Hamill's father caught him tipping cows.........
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4 comments:
I don't know you... but I knew him well. I consider him family. I've cried over and over the last two weeks. He really was a guy you would've enjoyed sitting down with over a drink. (or cow-tipping with?!) :-)
Thanks for keeping his memory out there!
i appreciate his service to his country. i absolutely know i would have loved to go out for a beverage with him! (No cow tipping for me)
Love ya Jay.
Had a few drinks for you because thats what you would have wanted. Just fond memories and laughs.
Sitting in the tree watching the world ...
i'm sure he really would have liked that.
i'm so very sorry i never got a chance to sit in a tree with him or have a beverage with him or just say welcome home to him
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