Guardsman Patrick McCaffrey: “He would be alive today if…

Guardsman Patrick McCaffrey: “He would be alive today if…

Recently, People’s Lobby was honored to have Gold Star Mom, Nadia McCaffrey, join as an advisor to its citizen-initiated World Service Corps proposed congressional legislation. “If this (World Service Corps) had existed when my son wanted to serve, he would be alive today…” http://www.WorldServiceCorps.us

As a boy, weighing less than 80 pounds at 15, Patrick overcame anorexia by becoming a bodybuilder and leader. By 30, he had two children, a wife, comfortable home, and his admiring employer, Palo Alto’s Akins Collision Repair, planned their expansion around Patrick as general manager of his own shop. Then came September 11th, and he had “to serve my country, to make a difference, to help.” Neither his father, a military veteran, nor his mother, a career humanitarian and hospice worker, could change their son’s course.

Assured that he would “serve at home,” he joined Petaluma’s 579th National Guard Engineers Alpha Company. Instead of guarding a stateside nuclear power plant, by 2004 his company of 90 tented itself in 125-degree heat in Northern Iraq.

Patrick was as admired as a soldier as he was as employee and father. Iraqi kids, without enough electricity, drinkable water, and food, would rush Patrick’s recognizable plywood and sand bagged Humvee for the food and water he would bring them from Camp Anaconda.

When his comrades were tired, bodybuilder Patrick picked up their heavy load, including the older, seventy-five pound radio equipment often assigned to Guard units. If someone were wounded, Patrick was the Medic at their side. When guardsman complained about overwork, crap details, and lack of sleep, Patrick carried the message to higher-ups. When a soldier fell into darkness, Patrick paid for his stateside phone call.

Patrick started Iraq hoping to help the country and their “beautiful children.” But from his early daily communiqués, his mother noted increased disillusionment. From patrols, to interactions with citizens, to training Iraqis to replace them, Patrick’s optimism shifted to, “Mom, I don’t know what we’re doing here.”

This administration has not released a report of what happened in Balad around June 22, 2004. Here’s a first- hand sourced summary. Patrick, representing his unit, complained to commanders about his unit being stretched thin, lack of sleep, and too many dangerous forays. Officers told him to do his job.

Patrolling in treacherous, canal-veined, high grass with Lieutenant Andre Tyson, Bruce Hemelright, five Iraqis soldiers and a translator they had trained, they came under sniper fire. Hemelright noticed some of their backup was missing. Then, the remaining Iraqi backups turned their machine gun onto Lieutenant Tyson. Patrick, strapped with 75 pounds of radio gear, came to his friend's defense. Bullets ripped through Patrick’s second-rate Kevlar, legs, and neck.

Because a commercial airline brought Patrick’s flagged-draped coffin to Sacramento and hundreds of waiting friends, media captured one of those rare administration censored visuals of fallen heroes. Since that day, an apolitical mother joined war critics such as Dahr Jamail and Mark Manning, who are famed among alternative media. Jamail and Manning were the only two unembedded American journalists inside Fallujah during the two sieges of April and November 2004 and continue their dangerous work there -- and here. Today, stateside they live with threats, thefts, and intimidations.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8730.htm With her commitment to finding a “totally new, better, humane way to involve ourselves in the world,” Nadia has joined them.

Today, French-born Nadia lives with and helps heal the wounds of her daughter-in-law, Silvia, and children, Patrick Jr., and Janessa. Recently, a car parked outside their home for several hours, before FBI agents came to the door to question the scared daughter-in-law. Nadia wasn't home.

Then, while Nadia was at a Peace Conference in Jordan, on three successive weekends in early 2005, helicopters circled their home, “…at very low altitude for up to 4-5 minutes each time.” On the third weekend, Nadia was home and, “I ran out and stood on the front land watching them, one came lower and stood still just above the large tree that we have across the street, nose down, I could very clearly see the pilot, that must have lasted 3 minutes... I asked various people what this was about…”

When told of the pale blue and white helicopter incidents, several retired Secret Service agents opined “Homeland Security.”

When we have a million World Service Corps volunteers nation building at home and abroad, we will have more Homeland Security. Brave Americans will lose less blood. Agents and helicopters will not waste tax dollars intimidating grieving, loving moms.

You can learn how the citizen-initiated World Service Corps proposed congressional legislation builds a more secure Homeland, sign the Petition, and help at http://www.WorldServiceCorps.us

If you don’t know Gold Star emotion and courage, then Goggle Nadia and Patrick McCaffrey, "Who’s Dying in Our War,” or gutsy Mark Manning and Dahr Jamal.