U.S. Soldier in Iraq May Get to Visit Dying Mother

[PfcHammer]

http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=4913921

U.S. Soldier in Iraq May Get to Visit Dying Mother
Thu Apr 22, 2004 04:45 PM ET

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A Wisconsin woman who may have only a month to live got some good news on Thursday -- the U.S. Army apparently will allow her son to leave Iraq for what could be a final visit with her.

"We heard from him this morning. He said that between the first (of May) and the 18th there was some ... leave going on and he was supposed to get home," Patrice Confer of Altoona, Wisconsin, said in a telephone interview.

Her 19-year-old son, U.S. Army Pvt. Joseph Wagner, is stationed in Tikrit. When Confer learned two weeks ago that she had pancreatic cancer that had spread to her liver, she sent a message through the Red Cross to her son's commanding officers asking that he be allowed to come home.

<snip>

"He said he'd only be home for two weeks. Kind of a bummer, huh?" Confer said.

[fryguy]

1. I hope he does make it home

and I hope his mother out-lives the doctor's prediction and the Army sees the humanity and wisdom of keeping him home.....

[Fridays Child]

2. If they flew him out of there right now, it might set a precedent...

...for humane behavior. Couldn't have that. No. Uh-uh. :mad:

[koopie57]

3. why don't they let him stay home

until she passes on and he can help to settle her estate and do all those things that need to be done? It is like he now has to hope she passes on so he can be here or leave knowing his mother is in the process of dieing. It seems as those we have become a nation of barbarians.

[Garion_55]

6. war war war.

gotta have those bodies in iraq. anything else is not important.

[Az_lefty]

4. We had people fly home on emergency leave while in Iraq

two of them stayed home until the rest of the company redeployed, because of family issues. This soldier shouldn't have to go back.

[grasswire]

5. my mother..

...was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and 63 days later she was dead. By the time there's a diagnosis for this, nothing can be done. Nothing.

[lostnfound]

7. Damn war..yet another dimension of its brutal nature

as if there wasn't already enough.

[daleo]

8. If he killed one additional aged Iraqi Muslim woman

Would the Christian God let him home to see his own dying mother?

Strictly a theological question. Maybe rhetorical. God will get me.