Staff Sgt. Maupin’s remains found in Iraq
Keep the Maupin family in your thoughts and prayers tonight:
Sgt. Matt Maupin is dead, the parents of the missing Clermont County soldier said today.
Maupin’s remain were found in Iraq, nearly four years after he was captured by insurgents, his parents said. An Army general visited them today and gave them the news, they said.
“Matt is coming home. He’s completed his mission,” his father, Keith Maupin, said.
Maupin was a 20-year-old private first class when he was captured on April 9, 2004, after his fuel convoy was ambushed west of Baghdad. He had been driving a supply truck.
Arab television network Al-Jazeera aired a videotape a week later showing Maupin sitting on the floor surrounded by five masked men holding automatic rifles. That June, Al-Jazeera aired another tape purporting to show a U.S. soldier being shot. But the dark and grainy tape showed only the back of the victim’s head and not the actual shooting.
The Glen Este High School graduate was the only U.S. military member still listed as missing-captured in Iraq. Military officials identified the remains through DNA, Keith Maupin said. He said he wasn’t told where the remains had been found.
“We don’t know where, just somewhere in Iraq.They found a shirt similar to what he (Matt) was wearing,” Keith Maupin said. “They had DNA and confirmed it was Matt.”
The Maupin family website is here. And please support their Yellow Ribbon Support Center.
They adopted a saying:
Odo Nnyew Fie Kwan Frame (”Love Never Loses Its Way Home”), a West African proverb, is used in Iraq among the troops to describe the search for Staff Sergeant Maupin. The Maupin family also used the phrase as a cornerstone for their hope that Matt would one day return home.
R.I.P.
Let’s hope our troops find the animals who murdered Maupin and deliver justice.
Here’s a YouTube tribute to Sgt. Maupin posted last year:
And another one from a soldier who served with him:
See what others have said
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Rest in Peace my friend.
May God the Father Almighty rest his Soul and comfort his family.
They are all condemned.
I am so sorry to hear this news and in my anger the first thought I have is when will we just kill those savages that roam the middle east?
We know the enemy and yet we want to win their “hearts and minds”…bs….they are savages.
I will pray that God will keep the Maupin family, as well as all of the families who have lost a loved one defending our freedom, in His hand in their hour of grief.
God bless Matt and his family.
Welcome home, Sgt.
I am saddened to have it confirmed he was murdered, but I am pleased that his family will no longer have to wonder where he is and what happened to him. They will have him back, even if it is to bury him. At least then, they’ll be able to visit with him when they want to.
I have kept the Maupin family in my prayers over the years, and have prayed for a much different outcome. Regardless I prayed that he would come home, and now he has.
We can only hope that they will get justice on the battlefield, because in the political arena they will be fiercely defended and their Geneva Convention Rights (which really do not apply to terrorists as we all know) will be upheld.
Thank you Matt, from the bottom of our hearts, me and my family.
God Bless your family.
Lord, give them some comfort please.
Rest easy Bro.
To the Maupin family-you are among the bravest of the brave. Thank you for your sacrifice. Thank you for Matt.
He was a brave solider who will never be forgotten!
Where is the outrage? WHERE? Shooting Americans in the head in cold blood gets zero reaction, yet God forbid an American say a bad word to a freaking ‘insurgent’. What the hell is wrong with this country? Why don’t we just nuke ourselves if we’re so self-hating????
God rest his soul. His image has been a slide on my office computer’s screen saver for at least three years, and this news is tragic, yet far from unexpected. I fear his name will simply become a footnote, but not if I can help it.
I’m glad that we now have an answer. May God comfort his family.
I have thought of Matt Maupin often, but not as much as he or his family deserves. I am thankful they finally have closure. I hope we never forget about the sacrifice he and his family have made.
Thank God this brings some much needed closure for the family. Thank you Maupin family for him and for his valiant service to this nation and the free world. We salute you, him and send you our warmest condolence.
No soldier left behind.
I’m saddened to finally learn the outcome, but I hope his family can find some sort of closure knowing where he will rest. God bless him and his family. An American hero.
I am glad he will be at rest at home. May God bless and keep his family.
TO A CELEBRATED HERO FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN
(i)
I see you, a fresh-faced boy
crowding into a tiny skiff at the dead of night,
juggling heavy kit and rifle to the jeers of mates:
“Off me lap, Jack – you ain’t me girlfriend!”
Did you know then the gratitude of a nation
was what hung in the air, lacing the stench
of sweat-soaked innocence with ideals
of foolhardy bravado and just cause?
That MY future comfort and ease
would be bought at the price of the fear
falling in curtains down your pack-bruised back,
the blood of comrades clotting beneath your
soul-scraping fingernails and tears of despair
washing your boots free of ignominy and madness?
(ii)
Sir, you do not know me, distanced in time and place
from the scenes of your victory and valour,
but I know you; I know you in the heart of your son
whose life is testimony to the hopes and visions
your brothers died to nurture and preserve.
His actions in a world still ill-at-ease with goodness
render your triumph complete; in him
is your standard a banner raised high
and those whom it shelters bask in your heritage.
(iii)
Your medals may gleam with a righteous pride;
your belt may still be buckled with nobility and courage.
But give me your boots, muddied and torn
for they have carried the burden of toil
and brought home the glory of a nation.
Leading Seaman John Turner, I am forever in your debt.
With untold thankfulness, I salute you.
Kate Burnside
We owe a debt
No matter one or one million, the same understanding, respect and dignity must be accorded our fallen American children, all precious and irreplaceable.
There is no minimum speed, no maximum time nor limit of care that’s excusable in the expression of appreciation, very deserved, our at rest sons and daughters receive.
To them has fallen the sacrifice, to us falls the debt.
We must never fail in that debt.
May God bless and keep you SSgt Maupin. God knows you have earned it!
God bless your family, as well. Your loss has not been in vain, Soldier!
Thank you, Sargeant Maupin for your sacrifice. May you know peace now. And to his family, I will continue to pray for your peace.
SGT Matt Maupin’s story represents Conservative American Values. We do not leave any man or woman behind. We will never stop looking for you. Your life is invaluable. Your sacrifice for world freedom solidfies our determination to Win the War.
Never in our American history has the value of one single anonymous life been more cherished. We have evolved from the death and forget wars… to the FIGHT FOR LIFE AND INFINITE FREEDOM wars. Matt will forever be one of our unique American Military who makes me proud of this country through his self sacrifice. We never gave up and we found you.
Thank you SGT Matt Maupin and God Bless You.
My prayers are with the Maupin family…and with all the families of MIAs and KIAs. The world is silent, of course, on this; they’re too busy complaining on how Gitmo handles a prisoner’s koran and demanding “Constitutional” rights for international terrorists. They want us to follow the Geneva conventions. If I was Bush, I would say, “Yes, we need to follow the conventions to the letter. Hello, Gitmo? Try ‘em and shoot ‘em.” Executing prisoners seems to be what the koran wants these lowlifes to do. It doesn’t surprise me.
May God Bless him and his family and may he continue to give him comfort. I hope that his coming home will give his family some solace.
Like many of you, where is the outrage? I haven’t seen anything on the news just in the Yahoo and AT & T newsbreaks on the front page. I guess it was on Foxnews.com but I’ve been watching since 6:30 and they haven’t mentioned it.
I also hope that his killers are found on the battlefield because they sure won’t get it if they’re caught alive. We must always give the terrorists all the rights because we know they treat our men and women so well when they capture them/sarc off.
They just mentioned him on Fox, at 7:40 a.m.
All gave some. Some gave all.
R.I.P.
May God steady his family and keep them!
Amen.
Our thought, prayers, and condolences to the Maupin family during this difficult time. Rest in Peace Sergeant Rest in Peace.
As for those in our Government that believe those we catch on the battlefield are entitled to Geneva Convention protections I strongly urge them to read the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC). It indoctrinated into everyone man and woman in the U.S. Military and in the U.S. Air Force an annual training requirement. The enemy we fight has murdered and in many cases mutilated American fighting men taken prisoner under the LOAC we are now entitled to treat the enemy the same way on the battlefield. For our trolls the savages our men and women fight overseas do not wear uniforms or badges that identify them as lawful combatants therefore they are not entitled to Geneva Convention protections.
God bless the Maupin family and give them peace. RIP SGT Maupin.
This family is in my prayers.
RIP, Sgt. Maupin. May you find everlasting peace with God and his angels.
Here’s hoping a smart bomb instead of a scholarship is the only reward for the killers of yet another promising young soldier.
Notice how the trolls never come to posts like this to express their condolences unless it’s to be a fool like sausage? We already know who they’re rooting for, I guess they just have to remind us every now and again.
Small point Michelle. He is a SGT not a Staff SGT as your headline says unless he received another promotion. There is a difference between a SGT (E-5) and a SSG (E-6). He was a SPC (E-4) when he was kidnapped and promoted to SGT while missing.
My condolences go out to the Maupin family, but I am relieved that they have recovered his remains.
Rest In Peace Matt.
I agree with your post, except for the emphasized part.
The Law of Land Warfare (perhaps the same as or part of the Law of Armed Conflict you refer to) doesn’t really specify how unlawful combatants are to be treated so much denying them the legal and procedural protections set forth in those laws.
Once a bandit, brigand or terrorist is identified as such then it’s up to the detaining force to deal with him under its own rules; historically since ancient times captured fighters who have refused to distinguish themselves from civilians have been treated about the same as spies (i.e., summary execution).
What our own rules should be concerning unlawful combatants has been the subject of debate ever since we started taking them prisoner, but “An eye for an eye” isn’t one of those rules. It may feel pleasurable in the moment to stand somebody up against a wall and fill him with lead, or to watch his eyes bulge as he jerks and twists at the end of a rope, but in the long term such activity blurs the distinction between us and what we’re fighting not only in the eyes of the locals but to our own people as well.
Take up the White Man’s burden–
Ye dare not stoop to less–
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloke your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.
The foreign enemy wants the Iraqi people to see us as occupiers, oppressors, torturers and murderers who make up the “law” as they go along. Our domestic enemy wants to convince the American people of the same thing. They work tirelessly toward this goal, because they know that that’s the only way they can win.
Shall we indulge them by giving them real instead of trumped up or imaginary examples? Would that honor the memory of SSG Maupin - or have some other effect?
War is an ugly and frustrating business, made even more so when the enemy can engage in any kind of barbarity and we can’t. But the veneer of rationality and civilization is what distinguishes us from them in a guerilla conflict, and mustn’t be shed no matter how great the temptation or provocation.
RIP SGT Maupin.
Great post Regulus…couldn’t agree more.
Please follow this link and light a candle for him. It was started by Silver Star Families of America just for him.
http://www.gratefulness.org/candles/candles.cfm?l=eng&gi=KMM
May the time on earth left for the scumbags who did this be very, very short.
#13 I feel that same outrage that this country is not doing enough to stop this evil cancer. God bless our military and the Maupin family.
Sister:Silver Star turned Gold WWII