Sunday, January 11, 2004

Service & sacrifice

Soldiers' deaths bring Iraq war home

By CHRIS A. COUROGEN

It dominates the headlines and tops the evening news. Politicians debate its merits; as do ordinary people. Already, scores of books have been published about it.

Still, for most people, the war in Iraq is a world away.

For some families, the war is an intrusive enemy that has forever altered lives.

"This war is far away when you don't know people getting killed or being hurt. You never think of it coming to you."

Those are the words of Bianca Taenzer, a young German woman with a broken heart. The war invaded her home when an Iraqi bomb blew up an American Humvee, killing her boyfriend, U.S. Army Sgt. Timothy Hayslett of Lower Mifflin Twp.

The war had already descended upon Lebanon and Enola, where the parents of Army Spec. George A. Mitchell, Jr., a 1985 graduate of Lebanon High School, reside. Mitchell died when an Iraqi rocket slammed into a command post.

Less than a month after Hayslett's death, the war returned to Cumberland County, taking with it Army Staff Sgt. Kimberley Fahnestock Voelz. Voelz died when an Iraqi bomb exploded as she attempted to defuse it.

These are not war stories, but reminders that behind every casualty report there is a human face.