The Good SoldierS
HAYES, STEPHEN F.
Casual The Good Soldiers On a recent episode of Law & Order, a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom is the victim of a homicide. After returning from the war, he'd struggled with severe mental...
...By a cruel twist of fate, his murderer, it turns out, is also a mentally unstable veteran of the Iraq war...
...The parents, too, and an aunt were dressed up...
...The next night, on ER, an Iraq war veteran fakes an injury to feed his addiction to painkillers...
...Later, they joined the congregation for an emotional rendition of "Eternal Father, Strong to Save," also known as The Navy Hymn...
...Be brave...
...Keep your word...
...And never let rest those that killed them...
...Fifteen minutes into the service, the chaplain announced that some of the graduating midshipmen had chosen to dedicate their commissions to serving God...
...one brother had a soul patch and the other's hair was worn in that style resembling a rooster's crest...
...Washington Post reporter Dan Morse wrote about the service—attended by soldiers, sailors, and Marines of all ranks—in a memorable article for the paper's Metro section...
...He left behind a young wife and a one-year-old daughter...
...Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, I saw another...
...Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee, / For those in peril on the sea...
...A reading from the book of Timothy followed and the family read not from pew Bibles but their own, the pages marked with the distinctive yellow streaks of a highlighter...
...After returning from the war, he'd struggled with severe mental problems, while a bureaucratic snafu had left him without adequate disability benefits and finally homeless...
...Serve your country...
...It was his fourth tour in Iraq—duty that included some of the fiercest battles in Fal-luja and resulted in a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts...
...military...
...A tall, athletic Filipino-American midshipman sat in front of me, surrounded by six members of his family, including three siblings, all of them California cool...
...At the burial, a friend of Zembiec's read aloud from it: "Be a man of principle...
...Fight for what you believe in...
...Major Zembiec was killed outside Baghdad in early May...
...On the Wednesday of the Iraq-themed Law & Order, Major Douglas Zembiec, who graduated in 1995, was memorialized in the Naval Academy chapel before being buried at Arlington...
...Live with integrity...
...He was but one good soldier fighting helplessly against made-in-America depravity...
...After an overdose, he begins speaking in Arabic, repeating the words screamed by Iraqi prisoners tortured by American sadists in uniform...
...And he had recorded advice for his Marines: "Never forget those that were killed...
...Stephen F. Hayes...
...An officer, struck by the turnout of enlisted men, told him: Your men have to follow your orders...
...It was a special occasion...
...The midshipman, with nearly shaved black hair, sat upright in his crisp dress whites...
...This is one view of the U.S...
...As the music filled the chapel, the midshipman's father clutched his Bible and wiped away tears—of pride, certainly, and perhaps concern...
...When she invited them to stand, the young man in front of me and dozens of his fellow midshipmen rose and promised to conduct themselves with dignity and honor as they served their country...
...The midshipman's father snapped photos of his son taking the oath and enlisted the boy's aunt to operate the video camera...
...The soldier had memorized the words, he explains to the doctors, after translating them over and over...
...Believe in something bigger than yourself...
...The sister had a prominent tattoo...
...Zembiec had lived by a certain creed and had even bothered to write it down...
...Many of those who leave Annapolis will head to war zones in the Middle East, and some, sadly, will return to the chapel too soon afterwards for another service in their honor...
...He is found dead in a polluted alley...
...Lead from the front...
...The first and fifth verses honor sailors and Marines like those graduating from the Naval Academy: Eternal Father, strong to save, / Whose arm hath bound the restless wave, / Who bidd'st the mighty ocean deep / Its own appointed limits keep...
...The service kicked off Commissioning Week at the Naval Academy, when graduates, having completed one mission, leave for another...
...It was called "Principles My Father Taught me...
...On Sunday, in the chapel of the U.S...
...they don't have to go to your funeral...
...But he could never convince his fellow soldiers to quit the torture...
Vol. 12 • May 2007 • No. 36
