Remembering The Fallen

As The Year Draws To A Close, CBS News' David Martin Reminds Us To Remember The Sacrifices Of Others

(CBS)  "Stunned airline passengers stare out as the flag draped casket of a fallen Marine comes home for the last time. The pregnant widow of 1st Lt. James Cathey sobs and clings to the man she cursed and refused to speak to when he delivered the news.

"I think notifying a young pregnant widow is the most difficult thing," Lt. Col. Stephen Beck told CBS News' David Martin.

For two years, Lt. Col. Beck cast a long shadow as the dreaded knock on the door.

"I'm delivering the worst news in the world that could possibly…that a family could possibly receive," Beck said, "yet I have to do that with enough grace to build a relationship of…a caring relationship with that family, to guide them through what is going to be the worst months of their lives."

He has knocked on 13 doors.

"I remember them all. I remember the doors. I remember the walk to the door. I remember the prayers before the walk to the door. I remember them all."

For Melissa Givens, the knock came on May 1, 2003. She was eight months pregnant and President Bush was about to deliver his "mission accomplished" speech.

"I'm watchin' it," Givens remembers, "waiting for him to come on, and I turn around and there's two guys standing at my door. And they wanted me to come to the door because they regretted to inform me that he drowned in the desert."

Jesse Givens had been trapped in his tank when it went into a canal. He was the 139th soldier to die in a war which has now claimed 3900 lives.

"He wasn't soldier 139," Givens said. "He was my best friend. He was Dakota's dad. He was his mom's, you know, baby. He was so much to so many and we lost him and we loved him and we still love him."

"At the time, 139, everybody was saying how low the casualties were," Martin said.

"Right."

"It must not have felt low to you."

"No," Givens agreed, "No, cause mine's gone."

Jesse, a tank driver with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, left home less than three weeks before he was killed.

"Do you remember the last thing you said?" Martin asked Givens.

"Good bye. Don't make me rich," she answered.

"Don't make me rich."

"We kept joking, because of the life insurance," she recalled.

"So if you could joke about it, maybe you weren't very worried that it really was going to happen," Martin asked.

"I wasn't," she said.

But Jesse was. "I've been getting bad feelings" he wrote in a letter to be opened after his death. "I hope someday you will understand why I didn't come home," he told his then five year old son Dakota.

And to his wife, "Please find it in your heart to forgive me for leaving you alone."

"I have a lot of guilt about being the parent that, that is still here," Givens said. "I haven't always been a great parent. And he was great."

28 days after Jesse died, their child, Carson, was born.

"He's a blessing to look at cause he looks like his dad," Givens said. "He's got his eyes and his passion. But then, at the same time, you know, I know every time I look at Carson…if Carson's two years old, Jesse's been dead two years and 28 days."

Carson's older brother, Dakota, is now 10.

"You ever talk with Carson about your dad?" Martin asked Dakota.

"All the time."

"Really? What do you tell Carson?"

"That he always wanted to meet Carson and see him."

"Does Carson get sad sometimes?" Martin asked.

"He didn't used to. Now he is."

"About his dad?"

"He just started to figure out what it means when you go up to Heaven," said Dakota.

"Do you get sad sometimes?"

"Oh, sort of. I'm kind of not crying as much as I used to. I cry a little bit. I don't cry like a lot."

---

"I think any military leader would be only honest to say that, that he's constantly asking, "Is this worth it?" and I've asked myself that at various times," General David Petraeus told Martin.

General Petraeus commanded a division during the initial invasion and now, on his third tour, is commander of all forces in Iraq. He knows many of the 3900 fallen Americans personally.

"Well, certainly in the hundreds. And, and obviously, the, the closer you are, the more you feel it," Patraeus said. "But I think it doesn't matter. You may be…I think it was John Donne who said, you know, "Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee. Any man's loss diminishes me," I think is roughly what it was. And that is very, very true for that family of those who are in uniform."

General Petraeus says he feels a special bond to Staff Sergeant Paul Johnson of the 82nd Airborne who was killed in 2003 outside Fallujah. They served together back in the States and in Bosnia.

"I don't know whether I regard him as a son, a brother, whatever it was. His loss just hit really, really…very, very hard."

And the General says he will never forget one especially tragic night in 2003 when 17 soldiers died after two helicopters in his 101st Airborne Division collided in mid-air.

"It's something you never get hardened to as a leader," Petraeus said.

Most of us are like passengers on that airplane. We catch only fleeting glimpses of the agonies military families endure.

"If half of the members of Congress had to wake up every morning worrying about a loved one at risk then they would solve this problem pretty quickly," said Senator Jim Webb.

Senator Webb was running for Congress while his son was a Marine fighting in Ramadi. Webb is himself the son of a Marine and a veteran of combat in Vietnam.

"It's harder having a son go to war than it is to go to war yourself, emotionally. The only time I ever saw my dad cry was when I said goodbye to him when I went to Vietnam."

"Did you cry when your son went to Iraq?" Martin asked.

"I shed more than one tear," said Webb.

Senator Webb's son is back home now. And Stephen Beck has a new job, one that does not require him to knock on doors.

But the fallen are still with him.

He visits their gravesites whenever he can and carries their photographs.

"I think the rest of my life I'm going to keep them foremost in my mind," Beck said.

"It doesn't go away. It doesn't get better," said Petraeus. "And you're always thinking about - especially at this time of year frankly - about families whose, whose soldier didn't return, who are celebrating holidays without them."

"It doesn't get better with time does it?" Martin asked Melissa Givens.

"No, it doesn't," she answered, "The bad days are still really bad."

"What makes it a bad day?"

"Right now? Christmas. Christmas sucks," she said with a sad laugh.

There are no happy endings to stories about the fallen. One young life has ended; other young lives have been blighted by grief. It takes all the families have just to survive.

"Did you think you could pull it off?" Martin asked Givens.

"Taking care of everything?" she asked.

"Become the person you've become?"

"No, I didn't," she answered. "I still kind of…I'm skeptical some days, you know? Every day I go wow, I did it. I did it another day. I'm good. I know he'd be proud of me."

The rest of us should ask ourselves if we've done anything to make the fallen proud.

[straightmate]

Bless the troops! ******* GEOERGE BUSH

[thechinaman1]

feelfree1:

you sir, do not know what it is to live under a system where such a comment would have you imprisoned and tortured.

the military has fought and died to protect your ability to utter such nonsense. you dishonor them by making such statements.

[aneiberger]

Thanks for this piece showing how families remember the fallen, which is poignant during the holiday season. I''ve talked with Melissa Givens, and admire her bravery in the face of such deep loss. She is among the 40,000 family members who have paid the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom - these families must pick up their lives every day and go on - and know their loved ones will never come home. The Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, TAPS, is here to help surviving family members who have lost a loved one in military service to our nation, and I urge families to visit our website at www.taps.org. We provide peer support, grief and trauma resources, case management assistance, and crisis intervention care.

[cattlekate]

Great posts, FeelFree.

Before the Bush defenders, ...................

who I have never found to be profiting from this invasion and occupation, but are instead poor schmucks who can''t accept the idea that this whole effort was a melding of a perfect storm of Big Oil''s wishes, Halliburtin''s resurection after Cheney''s Dressler purchase, and the Dictatertot''s War Presznit goal of ramming NeoCon *** thru our great land,..........

Swiftboat you, ......

I want them to ask themselves why none of Romney''s litter, nor that of Huckabee - (obesity is NOT a 4F) - nor the eligible children of anyone except Biden, ...

serve in Iraq.

[feelfree1]

To our troops:

"Do not fight for a dying regime. It is not worth your life."- GWB

www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxKpeKQA6B4/

www.couragetoresist.org/

[feelfree1]

honoredwife,

Re: "...but I would ask what did they think they were signing up for when the joined the Army..."

Most of the resisters that I am familiar with, appear to have thought that they were defending and protect our Contitution, since they all took a sworn oath to do so as U.S. military members.

No soldier is EVER required ANY order which he or she knows to be illegal. Refusing to deploy to a conflict that is known to be illegal, and its justifications known to be fraudulent, is arguably a legitimate stance to maintain, in the interests of fulfilling their sworn oath to our Constitution.

In my opinion, those U.S. service memberswho are serving in Iraq, have been duped into cooperating in a devastatingly disgraceful and criminal war of aggression, and are disgracing themselves and their country by cooperating with this horrendous debacle. I don''t intend that as an insult, but rather as a matter of fact (opinion).

I would like to see your loved one home and safe, and have fought hard to prevent them from going to Iraq in the first place. But the fact remains, that our military is still all-volunteer, more or less, and the people of Iraq never voluteered for the misery that we continue to inflict upon them.

I stand by my opinion- the only U.S. military heroes in the Iraq debacle are those who have/are resisting it. They are honoring their sworn oath to our Constitution in a most admirable way.

www.ivaw.org/

May you and your loved one see a Happy New Year.

[joyous88]

Right on FeelFree, you hit the nail on the head!

We can honor he fallen all we want ,and we do, that will never negate the truth , that these lives were squandered by a criminal administration un search of politicol "capital". Lives wasted by a corrupt illegal administration that slimed it way into office with a bribe , a faith based bribe for the mindless christian vote.

[honoredwife]

As a spouse of a soldier currently serving in Iraq, again, I ask all to please remember soldiers don''t ask to go, but are ordered to do their mission. Yes, "instructed" what they will be doing and where they will be carrying out their mission. I read where one individual posted about supporting those who have refused to go. I understand and believe in each person standing up for way they belive in, but I would ask what did they think they were signing up for when the joined the Army. The name says it all, it not a cover up name for something else which might be going on. In closing, please remember those who have fallen and remember they went for you even though you did not ask. They themselves don''t view themselves as heros but just as volunteers helping their homeland families.

[cbs_oliver]

""I think any military leader would be only honest to say that, that he''s constantly asking, "Is this worth it?" and I''ve asked myself that at various times," General David Petraeus told Martin."

Sadly, General Petraeus doesn''t understand and probably never will that "Is it worth it?" is not the right question to ask.

[justrains]

There are few who really care....... George W. Bush does not. He has run up a tab that our children, grandchilren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren will be left to pay for. I hope that history will tag this mistake as, "Bush''s Follie". Better yet. May his name be erased from history forever.

[feelfree1]

Re: "The rest of us should ask ourselves if we''ve done anything to make the fallen proud."

Let me explain something to you, David Martin. First off, there are now 3,901 officially dead U.S. soldiers from the Iraq debacle, not 3,900. I would hope that anyone posing as a journalist could at least get that right.

Secondly, the illegal, fraud-based, war crime riddled war of aggression against Iraq is about the most disgraceful thing that I have ever seen the U.S. participate in in my lifetime. It has resulted in the deaths of more than 1 million Iraqis, according to best estimates, tens of thousands of U.S. casualties, trillions of dollars of squadered U.S. treasure, and whatever dignity we have remaining as a country.

What''s more, Mr. Martin, you continue to work for one of the Western lapdog stenography oufits that relentlessly parroted the idiotic Bush regime claims agianst Saddam, and routinely villainized dissenters at every trun in the runup to the catestrophic and criminal crusade against Iraq.

[feelfree1]

Mr. Martin (cont.)

Lastly, you are still doing it. CBS parades yet another fake "Osama" release, without even the slightest effort at verification, and you talk about the U.S. soldiers in Iraq as though they are some kidn of heroes, involved in an effort which might in some way be considered righteous.

Well, Mr. Martin, it is not righteous, and they are certainly not heroes. At best, they are dupes and victims of the UNELECTED Butcher of Crawford, and they deserve our pitty, rather than our admiration. The ONLY U.S. military heroes of the Iraq disaster are those wise and brave U.S. service men and women that have and are resisting participation in it.

You quote the coward and traitor known as General Petraeus, as if his opinions are credible and/or relevant. They are not.

At any rate, they level of betrayal that we have seen from yellow-journailism outlets like CBS, rarely fails to disappoint. The people of Iraq have every right to defend themselves against the brutal, shameful, and criminal invasion of their country, and if they can manage to place a bullet in the heads of any Western media jingoist, I find it very hard to feel very sorry for them.

Best of luck to the people of Iraq, and may they find happiness in the New Year.

[andrewbgarla]

I stopped in my tracks when I saw Melissa and Jesse Givens. There is a wonderful tribute to pfc Givens: a musical setting of his last letter home. You can find it on YouTube. I''d heard Melissa''s words and seen her pictures with the kids, but this was the first time I saw videos of Jesse himself.
Please, everyday let''s all take a moment to recognize the sacrifices of our soldiers and their families.

[hungry1968]

FloydZepp,,,, Now libsluvsuvs has even more to be afraid of,,, Al Queda is now in more under developed country''''s than ever before.

Posted by j-whitman at 02:33 PM : Dec 30, 2007


And from the looks of things, they''re getting pretty chummy with Pakistan''s current leadership as well.

[j-whitman]

Justin4ever1,,, Nope, we should always remember our fallen --- but we need to remember them with something other than empty slogans ----- From day one of this conflict this administtration has been fighting every attempt to remember & fully honor them.

[justin4ever1]

Are you saying that we shouldn''t remember the fallen?

[j-whitman]

When we remember the fallen & their numbers,,, Bush lovers yell we are not American

[justin4ever1]

Wonderful as usual that they remember our fallen. But as usual it is always a number. We do not want our loved onces rememberd as a number he/she has a name. Why is it what number were they, I don''t know? That isn''t what is important. I wonder if someone were to ask you what number are you?

[j-whitman]

FloydZepp,,,, Now libsluvsuvs has even more to be afraid of,,, Al Queda is now in more under developed country''s than ever before.

[j-whitman]

libsluvsuvs,,,, YOU''RE WELCOME,, I didn''t expect you to thank me that soon.