Master Sergeant Joshua Wheeler
By Lynn R. Mitchell
The words by Michael Daly hit hard:
Master Sergeant Joshua Wheeler, the first American to die in Iraq against ISIS, is a reminder of those who have sacrificed in two wars that never really ended.
Fourteen combat deployments.
Eleven bronze stars, four with a V for valor.
Seventy hostages rescued in the final mission.
One flag covered coffin, to be met by one new widow.
Four sons now without a father, one a new baby.
One posthumous Purple Heart.
And 319 million Americans in perpetual debt to Master Sergeant Joshua Wheeler, 19 years-old at enlistment, 39 when he became the first American solider to die in Iraq since the war supposedly ended there.
Too many of us have acted as if we were not at war at all during these last 14 years. We all but forgot about those who were deployed again and again and again as we preoccupied ourselves with the likes of the Kardashians.
LynnRMitchell.com 