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Two Down

In two days for Mashpee, Massachusetts. A pair of remarkable young men:

 USMC PFC Daniel Maguire, 19, Mashpee High class of 2007, was killed in a firefight in Fallujah August 14. He was an Eagle Scout and a top student who enlisted to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps, and becuase, his friends say, he very much believed in what America is trying to do in the world.

“I’m very proud of my son and what he was doing,” said Dan McGuire, 45, of Mashpee. “He went from high school straight into the Marine Corps. His grandfather was a Marine, and joining the Corps was a desire of his for a long time.”

…

High school pal Selina Souza, 20, of Mashpee said McGuire “touched” many lives and “deserves to be remembered as a hero.”

“He was brave, smart and kind, and didn’t deserve to die so young,” she said. “He could have accomplished a lot in his life had he been given the chance. It’s a comfort to know that he died fighting for something he believed in.”

 Army PFC Paul E. Conlon, 21, Mashpee High class of 2005, was killed August 15 by an IED in Afghanistan.  Another top college-bound student who opted to enlist. He reportedly had the opportunity to leave when he was wounded earlier in his tour but refused.  “I can’t leave my brothers,” he reportedly told his mother, who is quoted saying her son “died doing what he always wanted to do.”

The small town on Cape Cod, population about 13,000, lost its first soldier in Iraq in August 2007, when Army Staff Sgt. Alicia Birchett was killed in Iraq. On the local public radio station yesterday, a MHS guidance counselor described trying to counsel the boys not to enlist and risk needless death in time of war, which sounds like they understood what this war and citizenship are about better than she does. The reporter asked if these deaths have brought the war home to this small town, a stock war-death question that misses the point, when you consider that the war came home to Mashpee a long time ago, when these boys decided to forego college to serve their country, at risk of sacrificing all.

Topics: Afghanistan, Iraq, military

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:01 am on Tuesday, August 19, 2008

One Response to “Two Down”

1. sdillard Says:
   August 19th, 2008 at 8:43 pm

   Sounds like these were two well balanced kids. Too bad no one can say the same for their “guidance” counselors.

   We’d be better off getting rid of the “guidance” counselors and replacing them with military recruiters. At least the kids would have a job.

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