“I don’t regret going. Everybody dies, but few get to do it for something as important as freedom. It may seem confusing why we are in Iraq. It’s not to me. I’m here helping these people, so that they can live the way we live, not have to worry about tyrants or vicious dictators, to do what they want with their lives. To me, that is why I died. Others have died for my freedom. Now this is my mark.”

-Capt. Jeffry Starr, the 2,000th American Solider killed in Iraq, in a letter to his girlfriend.


Family of dead Marine upset with N.Y. Times