"Debbie Lee says she’s sickened that the city her son sacrificed his life defending has fallen—and furious at the Joint Chiefs chairman’s insistence Ramadi is ‘not symbolic in any way.’"
A continuing comfort to her is her son’s last letter, an email that arrived a fortnight before his death. She had been amazed by the depth and power of these words from the homeschooled son who had always needed extra nudging when a subject did not interest him.
“Language was not one of the strong ones,” she recalled on Monday.
His was now a soul seared to eloquence.
“You can feel the deep impact of being in Ramadi, being in the war zone,” his mother said.
In the letter, the son wrote of the elusiveness of glory and of the enormity of violent death.
“I have seen death, the sorrow that encompasses your entire being as a man breathes his last,” he said. “I can only pray and hope that none of you will ever have to experience some of these things I have seen and felt here.”
But amid the worst, he had seen the importance of kindness and decency, moments when America was at its shining best. He urged those back home to do their part in the struggle to make our country realize its full greatness:
Ask yourself when was the last time you donated clothes that you hadn’t worn out. When was the last time you paid for a random stranger’s cup of coffee, meal or maybe even a tank of gas? When was the last time you helped a person with the groceries into or out of their car?
Think to yourself and wonder what it would feel like if when the bill for the meal came and you were told it was already paid for.
More random acts of kindness like this would change our country and our reputation as a country.
It is not unknown to most of us that the rest of the world looks at us with doubt towards our humanity and morals.
I am not here to preach or to say look at me, because I am just as at fault as the next person. I find that being here makes me realize the great country we have and the obligation we have to keep it that way.
The 4th has just come and gone and I received many emails thanking me for helping keep America great and free. I take no credit for the career path I have chosen; I can only give it to those of you who are reading this, because each one of you has contributed to me and who I am.
However what I do over here is only a small percent of what keeps our country great. I think the truth to our greatness is each other. Purity, morals and kindness, passed down to each generation through example. So to all my family and friends, do me a favor and pass on the kindness, the love, the precious gift of human life to each other so that when your children come into contact with a great conflict that we are now faced with here in Iraq, that they are people of humanity, of pure motives, of compassion.
This is our real part to keep America free! HAPPY 4th Love Ya
Marc Lee
P.S. Half way through the deployment can’t wait to see all of your faces
On August 2, 2006, Lee and his team got into a gun battle with a large force of insurgents in south-central Ramadi.
