...From www.foxnews.com .
'With three daughters serving in Iraq, John and Lori Witmer's family Web site collected photos from Baghdad, notes to home and messages of encouragement. "Keep praying! They're almost home!" a recent entry says. But the top notice, dated Sunday, carried grim news: "We regret to inform you that Michelle Witmer (search) was killed in action April 9th ...."
The 20-year-old private died when her Humvee was ambushed in Baghdad, making her the first woman in the Wisconsin National Guard to die in combat. Her family is asking the military to stop her sisters from being sent back to Iraq after this week's funeral. "I can't live another year like I've lived this one," John Witmer told The Associated Press. "The sacrifice that this family's made can never be understood by someone who hasn't gone through it... It's a burden I can't bear. My family can't bear it."
Michelle's 24-year-old sister, Rachel, served in the same unit, the 32nd Military Police Company, which was expected to leave Iraq shortly but just had its duty extended 120 days. Charity Witmer, Michelle's twin, was sent to Iraq late last year as a medic with Company B of the Wisconsin Guard's 118th Medical Battalion. The surviving sisters were expected home Monday, two days before Michelle's funeral. The Witmers also have two sons. The family said state National Guard leaders agreed to take their appeal to the Pentagon on Monday. Relatives also were seeking help from Sen. Russ Feingold, and Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. John Witmer acknowledged the final decision of whether to return will be up to his daughters. But he said they would have to understand "how terribly we need to know they're not going back."
Witmer said he worried about his daughters joining the military but felt at the time that duty with the National Guard would be relatively safe, especially with a military police unit. "My daughters wanted the freedom of being able to call their shots with their education," he said. "They were using that to go to school." Jan Pretzel, the sisters' grandmother, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that by February, Michelle had an inkling her unit might soon ship out of Iraq because members were told to tell their families to stop shipping packages. "This is a REALLY GOOD SIGN!!" she wrote in an e-mail. "The redeployment process (though it may be long) is finally beginning! There is finally a light at the end of the tunnel!"
...First of all, my thoughts and prayers are with the Witmer family. This must be a nightmare of truly unimaginable proportions for them. The other thing to keep in mind is that if the other sisters are sent home, watch for the dam to break on this subject. There are a surprisingly large number of siblings serving together in Iraq, and there is at least one father/son team I'm aware of.
This is going to bring up discussion of 'the Sullivan Law' - a VERY badly misunderstood piece of military rulemaking. The Sullivan POLICY - for tis' its true name - was promulgated after the loss of the five Sullivan brothers on a single USN cruiser early in WWII. After that, POLICY - not law, not regulation - stated that the forces would no longer assign siblings or other closely related family members to the same combat theatre or ship. This action inspired the movie 'Saving Private Ryan' - but it is a policy only - the DOD still reserves the right to say 'No', and with the tight personnel levels out there, I think you're going to see some strong resistance from DOD and the services to sending anybody home except at the end of their scheduled tours. |