In Memory of SGT. Richard Correa, Honnolulu, HI
Yesterday it was my friend Donald who lives in Honolulu. He posted this on the board right after he received the news. We are a community over at Political Animal. We actually do things for one another and become more than text. We email one another off the boards, and we join our collective efforts to achieve real, tangible goals. That you are reading this blog is evidence of that. WTWC is one of those tangible things that friends, united in philosophy but separated by geography can achieve with the advent of the internet. Two of my PA buddies were my cohorts in the Libby filing.
The great equalizer that is the internet has also changed the nature of friendship. So while I have never met Donald in the flesh, I know him, and I know what he has done in life, and the course his life has taken. So when he posted this, I felt his pain and tears welled up in my eyes.
"I got extended, I ain't ever coming home."
-- SGT Richard Correa, 14th Inf. Rgt., 10th Mtn. Div., USA, in a recent e-mail to his mother
"The Department of Defense announced today that Army SGT Richard Correa, 25, of Honolulu, HI died Tuesday from wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his position during a dismounted patrol in Ilbu Falris, Iraq."
-- DOD Press Release (June 1, 2007)
I would like to note, for the record, that SGT Correa's parents are also my neighbors and friends.
I only received word of Rich's death about one half-hour ago, having just arrived on Maui earlier this afternoon for the weekend. I'm now waiting at Kahului Airport for a 6:00pm return to Honolulu, so that I can stay with his mother until her husband and her parents arrive from L.A. after midnight tonight.
Aloha, everyone. And may God have mercy on us.
My most sincere sympathies to SGT. Correa’s mother, Donald, and to you, as well. Words can not express.
