Source Bare Naked Islam
Marine 1st Lt. Robert Kelly was killed by a concealed bomb in Afghanistan. His father asks that prayers be directed toward his son’s platoon, still facing danger on the battleground.
LA TIMES- Arlington, Va. — Amid a military tradition honed by the agony of warfare, Marine 1st Lt. Robert Michael Kelly was honored and buried Monday at Arlington National Cemetery in the section reserved for those who have fallen in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Kelly, 29, was killed Nov. 9 in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan in a disheveled place called Sangin, long a Taliban stronghold. He was leading his platoon on a combat patrol when he stepped on a concealed bomb.
Kelly is believed to be the only son of a general to have been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan during the last nine years.
His father, Marine Lt. Gen. John Kelly, speaking during the funeral service at the Ft. Myer Memorial Chapel adjacent to the cemetery, said he preferred not to eulogize just his son. He wanted to honor all those who enlisted after the Sept. 11 attacks ready to fight “an enemy that is as savage as any that ever walked the earth.”
The elder Kelly led Marines during the assault on Baghdad and Tikrit in 2003 and during the battle for Fallouja in April 2004. He then served a year as the top Marine in Iraq, returning to Camp Pendleton in early 2009.
Robert Kelly’s older brother, Marine Capt. John Kelly, served two combat tours in Iraq and is now stationed at Twentynine Palms, where he is helping train troops for Afghanistan.
With an all-volunteer force, only about 1% of American families have members serving in the nation’s wars, but among that 1%, there are families for whom service and sacrifice have become a generational obligation. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates noted in a recent speech that there are “a large number” of sons and daughters of senior officers serving combat tours. Tony Odierno, the son of Army Gen. Ray Odierno, formerly the top U.S. officer in Iraq, lost an arm in combat in Iraq in 2004
For most of the time since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, at least one member of Robert Kelly’s immediate family has been serving in a combat zone.
- Robert was heavily involved in the house-to-house fighting during the second assault on Fallouja, in November 2004, considered the bloodiest urban warfare for the Marines since Vietnam. A graduate of Florida State University, he finished his first enlistment as a corporal, then reenlisted in 2008 as an officer, following a path similar to that taken by his father.
November 23, 2010 Categories: Military stories . . Author: barenakedislam
My note:
Thank you, BNI, for a beautiful tribute. May each of us remember to thank our Father for the sacrifice of each and every member of our military this THANKSGIVING - and for their families.
Bee Sting
