Mother of solider collapses & dies
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| Tue, 10-05-2004 - 3:19pm |
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.

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There's absolutely no comparison between the seriousness of the the two procedures and the impact it has on one's life.
Edited 10/6/2004 12:41 pm ET ET by suemox
I agree--God bless our troops. I wish peace and healing for the families of those whose innocent lives were taken in Iraq. Please, God, send our soldiers home soon--safe, healthy, whole in body and mind.
Gettingahandle
Ignorance is Nature's most abundant fuel for decision making.
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However, the female version of that is far far worse and permanantly steals away a fundamental part of a person's sexuality.
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Female genital mutilation cuts or removes the tissues around the vagina that give women pleasurable sexual feelings. This procedure is used for social and cultural control of women's sexuality. In its most extreme form, infibulation, where the girl's vagina is sewn shut, the procedure ensures virginity. In some cultures where female circumcision has been a tradition for hundreds of years, this procedure is considered a rite of passage for young girls. Families fear that if their daughters are left uncircumcised, they may not be marriageable. As in most cultures, there is also the fear that the girl might bring shame to the family by being sexually active and becoming pregnant before marriage.>>
http://www.chclibrary.org/micromed/00048160.html
Well for one, according to John Kerry at least, their absence is the reason the US is suffering most of the casualties there. I explained why-they failed to join the coalition NOT because they did not believe Saddam was a threat, but because of MONEY plain and simple. They were making money helping Saddam line his pockets while Iraqi children starved, and they were making money illegally selling weapons to Saddam, in violation of the sanctions that COULD have caused Saddam to fall or cooperate and could have prevented the war had the world complied with them. Instead they emboldened him to keep on defying their own resolutions, and not allow the world to verify whether he was or was not a grave and gathering threat as everyone on the planet believed.
He WAS a threat with WMDs, John Kerry and John Edwards believed it, the Un security council believed it, everyone on the planet believed it. So in your opinion the US must wait until we are actually attacked with WMD's before we act to prevent it? I'm glad our president doesn't believe that.
You implied I was part of the group, I told you I was a mother of young children. I don't believe that all mothers are part of one demographic, stereotypical group who all think alike. I think for myself, I did before I had children and I still do.
"...Perhaps this final act was meant
To clinch a lifetime's argument
That nothing comes from violence and nothing ever could
For all those born beneath an angry star
Lest we forget how fragile we are..."
Learning about history is one thing, being alive to witness it is another altogether.
Also, in learning about the history of this country, when our democracy was born, we went throug a turbulent period too, did we not? Yet today, even though we are one of the youngest nations in the world, we are considered to have the strongest democracy in the world, and are considered, widely, to be a world leader, and world power.
This is going to explode in the faces of Chirac, Schroeder, and Putin, which is exactly why they didnt want to go in with the military and remove Hussein, and why France quietly kept reassuring Hussein that the US would not infact invade Iraq to remove him.
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