Whoops. Lesson learned.

A Florida reader sent along a news item about the memorial service for U.S. Army PFC Branden Cummings:

About 1,000 people crammed into the Brevard Memorial Funeral Home and spilled into the parking lot for the funeral of U.S. Army PFC Branden Cummings of Titusville.

Cummings, who died, Feb. 14 in Iraq, was remembered by family members as “the outgoing jokester with a big heart who could make everbody laugh.

“What a life, what a life that has been lived by this man,” The Rev. Joe Robinson said in his eulogy. “What a legacy he has left behind.”

The Orlando Sentinel reports Cummings was “killed on Valentine’s Day by an improvised explosive device during combat in Baqouba, about 30 miles northeast of Baghdad. He was 20.”

He looked up to his father, Charles Cummings, a Titusville corrections officer who had raised his son by himself since the boy was a preschooler. He called his dad “my hero” in a letter on his MySpace page.

“He has made so many sacrifices to make sure I was happy and now maybe I can return the favor to him. He’s my dad, he’s my hero, and I love him with all my heart,” Cummings wrote.

In return, his father said he offered unwavering support when Cummings enlisted in 2005, even though he knew his son’s choice might one day lead him to the front lines in Iraq.

“He had a strong sense that he needed to be there. He felt that what we were doing [in Iraq] was just and right,” Charles Cummings said Saturday. “I was proud of him every single day for that.”

Branden Cummings was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood.

The Patriot Guard Riders attended the funeral. Here is a memorial website called Our Guys Over There honoring Cummings and his platoon, including SSG Daniel Morris, killed Nov. 25 in Diyala province after an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle.

You can e-mail the platoon members and leave messages for the Cummings and Morris families here. Show your support.

The immortal words of 2LT Mark Daily live on. The Los Angeles Times has picked up the story: “Mark Daily wrote on MySpace that he joined the Army to help the suffering people of Iraq. In death, his words have become a call to service.”

A small sample:

In a 2005 videotape of his officers’ commissioning ceremony, Daily told the crowd that the U.S. Army is one of the few militaries in the world that teach not only tactics but also ethics. “I genuinely believe the United States Army is a force of good in this world,” he said.

He was not blind to military transgressions and fumed to his father that the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib was a failure of leadership. But that was exactly why he needed to get over there, he said. He was going to make sure that his men upheld Army values of integrity and honor.

So that is why I joined. In the time it took you to read this explanation, innocent people your age have suffered under the crushing misery of tyranny.

Don’t forget that human beings have a responsibility to one another and that Americans have a responsibility to the oppressed. Assisting a formerly oppressed population in converting their torn society into a plural, democratic one is dangerous and difficult business, especially when being attacked and sabotaged from literally every direction.

So if you have anything to say to me at the end of this reading, let it at least include “Good Luck.”

Daily touched down in Iraq on Nov. 19 and was sent to the northern city of Mosul. In calls and e-mails home, he began asking for presents for his new Iraqi friends: cigars for the soldiers, candy and soccer balls for the children. He vividly described his adventures with them: a Thanksgiving Day game of musical chairs, a rooftop cigar session; his first Kurdish meal, his first local haircut.

In one video he sent, Iraqi soldiers surround him with grins, crowning him with a turban as a gesture of friendship.

In typical fashion, he sought out new points of view. In one discussion, he wrote that he asked a Kurdish man whether the insurgents could be viewed as freedom fighters. The man cut him off. “The difference between insurgents and American soldiers,” Daily said the man told him, “is that they get paid to take life — to murder — and you get paid to save lives.”

“That Kurdish man’s assessment of our presence means more to me than all of the naysayers and makeshift humanists that monopolize our interpretation of this war,” Daily wrote in a Dec. 31 e-mail.

Print, save, pass it on.

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Meanwhile, Hillary sets her 90-day cut-and-run deadline.

WaPo spanks John Murtha and Glenn Reynolds notes: “Murtha is the face of today’s Democratic Party on the war. This is bad for the country, and likely to prove unwise politically.”

JD Johannes says: “Support the troops. Let them win.”

Mohammed Fadhil, PJM’s editor in Iraq, reports that it’s too early to celebrate, but the “surge” is showing signs of success and hope.

Investor’s Business Daily takes on Murtha’s “unparalleled perfidy” and publishes these latest poll results:

Power Line has combat veteran/former POW Rep. Sam Johnson’s floor speech. John Hinderaker writes: “If you can watch this with dry eyes, you’re a tougher man than me.”\

New – Sunday talk show video: Brit Hume takes on Murtha.

A Hot Air commenter quips: “Hume was speaking truth to coward.”

New: Allah weighs in on Hillary’s Ultimatumania! video.

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Previous:

2LT Mark Daily’s message reaches the Senate floor
The immortal words of 2LT Mark Daily

A reader e-mails that 2LT Mark Daily was killed in an IED attack in Mosul along with three other soldiers. He was named the ROTC’s outstanding cadet for 2005 and also a Distinguished Military Graduate, the highest ROTC award. The OC Register profiles him here.

This was his MySpace post explaining his decision to enter the military. I’m reprinting it in full because it deserves to be read and remembered–and because it will probably only get briefly mentioned or excerpted in most MSM coverage of his death. Read the whole thing:

Sunday, October 29, 2006

WHY I JOINED
Current mood: optimistic

Why I Joined:

This question has been asked of me so many times in so many different contexts that I thought it would be best if I wrote my reasons for joining the Army on my page for all to see. First, the more accurate question is why I volunteered to go to Iraq. After all, I joined the Army a week after we declared war on Saddam’s government with the intention of going to Iraq. Now, after years of training and preparation, I am finally here.

Much has changed in the last three years. The criminal Ba’ath regime has been replaced by an insurgency fueled by Iraq’s neighbors who hope to partition Iraq for their own ends. This is coupled with the ever present transnational militant Islamist movement which has seized upon Iraq as the greatest way to kill Americans, along with anyone else they happen to be standing near. What was once a paralyzed state of fear is now the staging ground for one of the largest transformations of power and ideology the Middle East has experienced since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Thanks to Iran, Syria, and other enlightened local actors, this transformation will be plagued by interregional hatred and genocide. And I am now in the center of this.

Is this why I joined?

Yes. Much has been said about America’s intentions in overthrowing Saddam Hussein and seeking to establish a new state based upon political representation and individual rights. Many have framed the paradigm through which they view the conflict around one-word explanations such as “oil” or “terrorism,” favoring the one which best serves their political persuasion. I did the same thing, and anyone who knew me before I joined knows that I am quite aware and at times sympathetic to the arguments against the war in Iraq. If you think the only way a person could bring themselves to volunteer for this war is through sheer desperation or blind obedience then consider me the exception (though there are countless like me).

I joined the fight because it occurred to me that many modern day “humanists” who claim to possess a genuine concern for human beings throughout the world are in fact quite content to allow their fellow “global citizens” to suffer under the most hideous state apparatuses and conditions. Their excuses used to be my excuses. When asked why we shouldn’t confront the Ba’ath party, the Taliban or the various other tyrannies throughout this world, my answers would allude to vague notions of cultural tolerance (forcing women to wear a veil and stay indoors is such a quaint cultural tradition), the sanctity of national sovereignty (how eager we internationalists are to throw up borders to defend dictatorships!) or even a creeping suspicion of America’s intentions. When all else failed, I would retreat to my fragile moral ecosystem that years of living in peace and liberty had provided me. I would write off war because civilian casualties were guaranteed, or temporary alliances with illiberal forces would be made, or tank fuel was toxic for the environment. My fellow “humanists” and I would relish contently in our self righteous declaration of opposition against all military campaigns against dictatorships, congratulating one another for refusing to taint that aforementioned fragile moral ecosystem that many still cradle with all the revolutionary tenacity of the members of Rage Against the Machine and Greenday. Others would point to America’s historical support of Saddam Hussein, sighting it as hypocritical that we would now vilify him as a thug and a tyrant. Upon explaining that we did so to ward off the fiercely Islamist Iran, which was correctly identified as the greater threat at the time, eyes are rolled and hypocrisy is declared. Forgetting that America sided with Stalin to defeat Hitler, who was promptly confronted once the Nazis were destroyed, America’s initial engagement with Saddam and other regional actors is identified as the ultimate argument against America’s moral crusade.

And maybe it is. Maybe the reality of politics makes all political action inherently crude and immoral. Or maybe it is these adventures in philosophical masturbation that prevent people from ever taking any kind of effective action against men like Saddam Hussein. One thing is for certain, as disagreeable or as confusing as my decision to enter the fray may be, consider what peace vigils against genocide have accomplished lately. Consider that there are 19 year old soldiers from the Midwest who have never touched a college campus or a protest who have done more to uphold the universal legitimacy of representative government and individual rights by placing themselves between Iraqi voting lines and homicidal religious fanatics. Often times it is less about how clean your actions are and more about how pure your intentions are.

So that is why I joined. In the time it took for you to read this explanation, innocent people your age have suffered under the crushing misery of tyranny. Every tool of philosophical advancement and communication that we use to develop our opinions about this war are denied to countless human beings on this planet, many of whom live under the regimes that have, in my opinion, been legitimately targeted for destruction. Some have allowed their resentment of the President to stir silent applause for setbacks in Iraq. Others have ironically decried the war because it has tied up our forces and prevented them from confronting criminal regimes in Sudan, Uganda, and elsewhere.

I simply decided that the time for candid discussions of the oppressed was over, and I joined.

In digesting this posting, please remember that America’s commitment to overthrow Saddam Hussein and his sons existed before the current administration and would exist into our future children’s lives had we not acted. Please remember that the problems that plague Iraq today were set in motion centuries ago and were up until now held back by the most cruel of cages. Don’t forget that human beings have a responsibility to one another and that Americans will always have a responsibility to the oppressed. Don’t overlook the obvious reasons to disagree with the war but don’t cheapen the moral aspects either. Assisting a formerly oppressed population in converting their torn society into a plural, democratic one is dangerous and difficult business, especially when being attacked and sabotaged from literally every direction. So if you have anything to say to me at the end of this reading, let it at least include “Good Luck”

Mark Daily

On his MySpace front page, he featured this quote:

“Patience demolishes mountains” -Arab proverb

He wanted to be a journalist.

These are the kind and caliber of men who fight for us. Twenty-three years young. God rest his soul. And never, never forget.