Mother of solider collapses & dies

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-05-2004
Mother of solider collapses & dies
60
Tue, 10-05-2004 - 3:19pm
Here's the original link: http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/10/05/soldiers.mother.ap/index.html

Mother of soldier killed in Iraq collapses, dies

'Her grief was so intense,' hospital worker says

Tuesday, October 5, 2004 Posted: 12:28 PM EDT (1628 GMT)

TUCSON, Arizona (AP) -- A 45-year-old woman collapsed and died days after learning her son had been killed in Iraq, and just hours after seeing his body.

Results of an autopsy were not immediately released, but friends of Karen Unruh-Wahrer said she couldn't stop crying over losing her 25-year-old son, Army Spc. Robert Oliver Unruh, who was killed by enemy fire near Baghdad on September 25.

"Her grief was so intense -- it seemed it could have harmed her, could have caused a heart attack. Her husband described it as a broken heart," said Cheryl Hamilton, manager of respiratory care services at University Medical Center, where Unruh-Wahrer worked as a respiratory therapist.

Unruh, a combat engineer, had been in Iraq less than a month when he was shot during an attack on his unit.

Several days after learning of his death, his mother had gone to the hospital complaining of chest pains, Hamilton said. She was feeling better the next day but saw her son's body Saturday morning and collapsed that night in her kitchen.

Her husband, Dennis Wahrer -- also a respiratory therapist -- and other family members performed CPR but Unruh-Wahrer was pronounced dead that night.

Autopsy results won't be released until relatives are notified, said Dr. Bruce Parks, Pima County chief medical examiner. There was no immediate response to a call to his office before business hours Tuesday.

Robert Unruh will be buried Friday at the Southern Arizona Veterans' Memorial Cemetery. His mother's body will accompany her son's in the procession to the cemetery.

Avatar for savagefreedom
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-20-2003
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 8:33am
I have to agree with you 100% :-D US military serve is done by personal choice
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 8:52am
Never heard the song. Maybe it would have been more productive to post the lyrics and doing so might have helped give some point to your post. Consider the following definitions of the word "savage":

<
savage

adj 1: (of persons or their actions) able or disposed to inflict

pain or suffering; "a barbarous crime"; "brutal

beatings"; "cruel tortures"; "Stalin's roughshod

treatment of the kulaks"; "a savage slap"; "vicious

kicks"

2: wild and menacing; "a ferocious dog"

3: without civilizing influences; "barbarian invaders";

"barbaric practices"; "a savage people"; "fighting is

crude and uncivilized especially if the weapons are

efficient"-Margaret Meade; "wild tribes"

4: marked by extreme and violent energy; "a ferocious beating";

"fierce fighting"; "a furious battle"

n 1: a member of an uncivilized people

2: a cruelly rapacious person

v 1: attack brutally and fiercely

2: criticize harshly or violently; "The press savaged the new

President"


Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Savage \Sav"age\ (?; 48), a.

1. Of or pertaining to the forest; remote from human abodes

and cultivation; in a state of nature; wild; as, a savage

wilderness.

2. Wild; untamed; uncultivated; as, savage beasts.

Cornels, and savage berries of the wood. --Dryden.

3. Uncivilized; untaught; unpolished; rude; as, savage life;

savage manners.

What nation, since the commencement of the Christian

era, ever rose from savage to civilized without

Christianity? --E. D.

Griffin.

4. Characterized by cruelty; barbarous; fierce; ferocious;

inhuman; brutal; as, a savage spirit.

Syn: Ferocious; wild; uncultivated; untamed; untaught;

uncivilized; unpolished; rude; brutish; brutal;

heathenish; barbarous; cruel; inhuman; fierce; pitiless;

merciless; unmerciful; atrocious. See Ferocious.>>

Somehow or other, none of these words seem appropriate to describe freedom, at least not the freedom with which I'm familiar. But then again, Bushies seem to live in an alternate universe.

Gettingahandle

Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 9:05am
My son enlisted at the end of August 2001. We all know what happened on September 11, 2001. Enlisting or being commissioned in the US armed forces is a personal choice. But once in the military, personal choice comes to a screeching halt. That's why safeguards are in place to try to ensure that the military, and its undisputed power, are used judiciously.

Congress SHOULD have debated the rationale for Iraq--and didn't. Time should have been given to vetting ALL so-called "intelligence"--and wasn't. The leaders of the free world should have conferred and presented a united plan of action to counter terrorist activities--but didn't. The Commander-in-Chief should have focused his just ire on Osama bin Ladin and devoted the nation's energies to capturing him and using HIM as an example--and didn't. And having gone haring after the truly confounding idea of attacking another country's leader altogether, this administration should have given thought to what might happen if their script for the war wasn't followed. Unsurprisingly, but tragically, they didn't.

Gettingahandle

Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.

Avatar for savagefreedom
iVillage Member
Registered: 05-20-2003
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 9:26am

I will find the lyrics, but in respond to your question. I am

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 9:31am
<<"Never heard the song. Maybe it would have been more productive to post the lyrics and doing so might have helped give some point to your post.">>....and what is the productivity and the point of yóur post?
Savagefreedom's reply made perfect sense. She answered a very personal, sneering question and explained where her handle comes from, and you could be more respectful eh? Afterall you say you believe in civility.

Djie

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 9:40am
Iraq WAS trumped up. The rationale for a pre-emptive war was the "grave and growing threat" that Ahmed Chalabi managed to sell to the willing-to-listen-and-believe Bush administration. Apparently, this administration was spoiling to go to Iraq and just needed the right pretext for which to do it. For crying out loud, why should my anger be directed at France and Germany?! Iraq had been contained. SH was nasty but not a threat to the US. And the rationale that "someday" he "might" present a threat? As a justification for invasion and war, it fails completely. It's just not predictable enough and comes across as unbelievably arrogant and bullying. The acid test is this: if another country tried the same gambit, under the same circumstances, how would the US react? Look at how we're responding to Russia's latest measures in their "war on terror". That response will give you some clues.

As far as Kerry and Edwards believing in the threat--well, let's just put it this way. They were not my first choice to succeed Bush/Cheney as president and vice president.

You're correct that soldiers do not get to choose the causes for which they will fight. If you read my response to one of savagefreedom's posts you will see that there were measures which should have been taken to ensure that they were fighting both justly and wisely. But this war was neither just nor wise.

I was using the term "soccer moms" to describe a group considered politically significant. Look back at my post. I did not specifically put you in that demographic. Actually, I believe the more common term now used is "security moms". And they're the ones who seem most susceptible to blandishments from the Bushies who seem to be promising that the war in Iraq will keep their children safe.



You have the right to your beliefs as do all of us. But I see nothing to prove that invading and occupying Iraq has made us safer. The repressive measures that are being used to try to give some semblance of security to Iraq are not winning hearts and minds. If anything, the war is making the hatred of the US much more virulent and widespread. And over a thousand US troops have died, thousands more have been maimed and even more will carry ghastly memories all their lives. IMHO, we have begun another Vietnam. We have given fundamentalist and even more moderate Muslims a reason to hate, fear, and conduct jihad on us.

Now we wait. Time will be the judge, jury--and executioner, if the wrong decisions were made.


Edited 10/6/2004 9:42 am ET ET by gettingahandle

Gettingahandle

Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 9:52am
Read again, Dije. My point was that savage and freedom seemed to have nothing in common. And you're jumping to conclusions in both your "sneering" and "So anything YOU never heard of must be from another universe?" comments. A sneer is a facial expression--and to the best of my knowledge, I don't have a webcam hooked up for a video feed! Nor did I make the any comment linking music I had not heard to an alternate universe. And I'm not a big Kerry fan, kite, whatever. Really, you need to be more careful!

No, I don't yet have a handle on the human condition. I'm working on it but lack the arrogance to claim I understand it fully.

Gettingahandle

Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2004
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 9:54am
-- Again, I disagree. Not only was Iraq a threat, but the only real way to defeat terrorism is to bring freedom and prosperity to the parts of the world where desperation breeds terrorism. That is what I believ our troops are doing, and I believe it is a more htan worthwhile cause.

Amen to that.

I have been saying this for a long time, and I truly beleive that the reason that the insurgents are fighting so hard is that they know what is at stake. A free and democratic Iraq severely hampers the terrorists "home base" areas, as a free Iraq will also show others in the region that it is possible to have the same thing, where the people can have an actualy voice in their government.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 10:02am
OK, I've read your post three times. I can make sense of the ITA part, even if it seems redundant to also paste big sections of the post, to which you're agreeing, into your response. What, pray tell, are you talking about in this statement: "Like I said elsewhere... Isn't it so incredibly ODD how it is those who oppose the war on Iraq that keep stubbornly connecting 9/11 to SHussein!! If only by saying it isn't so". Huh?

Gettingahandle

Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 10-06-2004 - 10:18am
Your beliefs won't make democracy take root in Iraq. What is happening on the ground is deadly to human life and worrisome for us because democracy will be identified for Iraqis, by association, with military force and violence. Bad news for democracy. And good news for terrorists because our presence in Iraq acts as fuel for the growing conflagration (NOW, much more of a "grave and growing threat") taking place in the Middle East. Invading and occupying a sovereign nation, without an act of act of aggression from it, is a lousy way to convince sceptics of the beauty of democracy--or to win hearts and minds.

Last night, Cheney used El Salvador as an example of a nation where he considered military force to have fostered democracy. Interesting that he didn't refer to either Japan or Germany any more. El Salvador. Oh yeah, the parallels to Iraq are overwhelming--NOT!

Gettingahandle

Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.