Lance Corporal David Hall, 1978- 2009

Like Nixon, I was invited to reinforce how much you all love your Jonn and TSO.   I bring a little different voice.  My husband and I have 14 kids between us, 9 at home, aged 23- 5.   I was a Marine wife after leaving the Navy.  And our son in law is a Marine, stationed at Camp Lejeune.  He just returned from Iraq and he’ll be leaving again soon.

Twenty one years ago,  I was a wild kid who hung with everyone, including the Hall sisters.  They were friends of some friends, about a year apart and were very nice girls.   Nicer than I was.  I didn’t keep in touch.  Tracy taught my daughter Geometry in the tenth grade.   I am not sure we realized we knew each other.  I didn’t see the Hall sisters again, till Tuesday morning.

Tuesday morning the Hall sisters were all over the front page of the newspaper.  They had a little brother.  I didn’t even know there was a brother, several years younger and adored by his older sisters.  Adored by everyone who knew him, it seems.

Lance Corporal David Hall, 31, had died Monday, in combat in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, according to the U.SDepartment of Defense.  Hall had also been  deployed to Iraq in 2007-2008.

31 years old and a lance corporal in Afghanistan? He was practically an old man. He joined the Marines a 28 year old man with one of the best jobs to be had in this area, at Ford Motor Company nearly 10 years after he graduated from Southview High School, where his sisters teach.  He enlisted before Ford started laying off.

And do you know what his sisters and his parents and his boss at Ford want people to know?  They want people to see that the ones who don’t die are heroes, too.

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Richard Payerchen of the Morning Journal wrote:

Now the family wants to raise awareness of the tough jobs of those in the service while they are serving. They described Hall’s deployment and watching some Marines whose families could not travel to see them off.

“There was nobody there to say thank you,” Lora Hall said. “They shouldn’t have to die to be treated like heroes.”

“We recognize people like this when tragedy happens, but we need to recognize everyone when they come home, let them know we appreciate them,” said Ford’s Ohio Assembly plant manager Joseph J. Lee.

I realize I’m preaching to the choir here but maybe this family’s plea to recognize the living service members for the heroes they are will open some eyes.   And, on the topic of pledges, I pledge to help families like these honor their dead by honoring the living; to stop being self-absorbed and focus more on others. Particularly the ones in harms way so my family sleeps safe.

Category: Politics