Photo of mother at gravesite referenced by Colin Powell endorsement of Barack Obama

The photo Colin Powell referenced in his endorsement of Barack Obama.  The photo of mother at her son's gravesite, a young man, 20 years old, killed in Iraq, awarded Bronze Star and Purple Heart.  Emblem on his gravesite is not the Christian cross, the Jewish Star of David, but the Muslim Crescent and Star.  Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, Cpl., U.S. Army, Operation Iraqi Freedom, was an American who was 14 at the time of 911.  He waited until he was of age to enlist in military to serve his country (United States of America) and he gave his life for his country...the United States of America.  

excerpt from the transcript of Colin Powell endorsement speech on Meet The Press today

I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine.  It was a photo essay about troops who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.  And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery, and she had her head on the headstone of her son's grave.  And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone.  And it gave his awards--Purple Heart, Bronze Star--showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death.  He was 20 years old. And then, at the very top of the headstone, it didn't have a Christian cross, it didn't have the Star of David, it had crescent and a star of the Islamic faith.  And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, and he was an American. He was born in New Jersey.  He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he can go serve his country, and he gave his life.  Now, we have got to stop polarizing ourself in this way.  And John McCain is as nondiscriminatory as anyone I know.  But I'm troubled about the fact that, within the party, we have these kinds of expressions.

Video of Colin Powell's endorsement speech of Barack Obama at Meet the Press today.

There is much to be mined from Colin Powell's speech that might resonate more strongly with others.  Colin Powell, with this reference, eloquenty elevated a truth and reality of the constancy of our country's relationship to the Iraq war.  I wanted to take a moment to share in elegance that truth, that reality, amidst all the background noise of the Presidential campaign.

It is not useful for me to editorialize or restate using my lesser words that which Colin Powell has brought into perspective with his own words.  I hope, readers, you will take time to listen to Colin Powell and hear the words for yourselves.

Award winning photo of injured Marine at his wedding

Courage comes in many forms; Award winning photo of wedding - returning injured Iraq Marine marries his high school sweetheart. Credit to the young woman for her own kind of courage, and credit to this amazing couple for finding a different kind of courage The photo is a hurting kind of photo in that it depicts horrendous injuries suffered by our young troops, yet the couple seem able to transcend and find their own hearts. Since yesterday was Valentine's Day, somehow it seems the right time to share this story.

I picked the below extract from a feeder and placing it here. I was undecided about using it in exact format since it pulls out the nature of the young Marine's injuries, and while that goes to the story, the couple's courage in facing this adversity is a more telling story, so I added some additional extracts.

Nina Berman won a prize in the 2007 World Press Photo contest for this heartbreaking photo of a badly wounded Iraqi war veteran and his childhood sweetheart on their wedding day.

Their story is here.

excerpts;

Ty was on his second tour of duty in Iraq and had been patrolling the streets in a truck with six marines around al-Qaim, an entry point for foreign fighters on the Syrian border. He had been there for five months, and the mission had become routine. “Mostly we just rode around and came back. The atmosphere was not particularly menacing. They weren’t shooting guns at us any more.”

Suddenly a suicide bomber blew himself up by his truck. “It felt like somebody just blasted me in the face really hard,” Ty recalls. “I was rolling around on the bed of a truck, yelling the whole time I was conscious. The guy next to me kept putting me out – I guess I kept relighting

"One arm was a stump and his remaining hand had only two fingers. Later, his big toe was grafted on in place of a thumb. One eye was blind and milky, as if melted, and his ears had been burnt away. The top of his skull had been removed and inserted by doctors into the fatty tissue inside his torso to keep it viable and moist for future use."

They were married in October, in their home town of Metamora, Illinois, a small farming community in the Midwest.

In Metamora, people know him well enough not to stare a lot, but he gets plenty of looks elsewhere. Mostly he shrugs it off. “I give people the benefit of the doubt. If you were me, I might look at you.” If they are particularly rude, he will turn and say: “So what were you going to ask me?”

Here are some more of the couple's wedding photos and
more photos of Iraqi vets from Berman here and here.