LTcl Bunny Long Died in Iraq last week.

Bunny.

Did his parents name him bunny to help invade a country and get killed in a war of lies?

Sorry, I saw the name in the weekly list on Stepanopolis's show and it knocked me to my knees.

RIP, Bunny.



http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/03/14/BAGK4HNPG71.DTL

Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, March 17 2006 @ 12:15 PM EST

On Thursday, March 16, I flew back to California from Washington DC on a United flight. In the waiting area, I noticed a Marine sargeant in full dress uniform. As I sat in the plane, I looked out the window and saw the baggage handlers carefully moving a large white container into the cargo hold of the plane. Printed on the covering were the words "Human Remains. Handle with Extreme Care." Only when the flight attendant announced that the sargeant was providing a military escort home for a Marine killed in combat did I make the connection. The attendant then noted that the person was Lance Cpl. Long of Modesto. While the passengers had cheered an earlier announcement about two Navy men on the plane returning from Kuwait, only silence greeted her statment about Lance Cpl. Long.

Debates about whether we should be in Iraq or not often seem to focus on the big picture, adding up the body count, etc. Seeing Lance Cpl. Long come home for the last time stirred many emotions in me, but also underscored the fact that there are no easy answers -- as are troops over there probably know better than anyone else.

May Lance Cpl. Long rest in peace.



I didn't see this in the article you posted, but thought I'd add it here.



Long, 22, graduated from Modesto High School in 2002 and began his tour in Iraq last September. Long was born in Memphis, Tenn., after his parents inmmigrated to the U.S. from their native Cambodia.

Long had planned to return home next month for his sister's wedding. "His surprise was that he was going to arrive at nighttime, then knock on everybody's door and say 'I'm home, I'm home,'" Long's mother Yen Chea said. "He loved seeing us getting a kick out of that and seeing the look on our faces when he comes back home."

Long had planned to save money to buy a car when he returned and wanted to go to college to make his parents proud, Chea said.

Long's two sisters said he left a time capsule behind and told a friend to give it to his family if anything happened to him. Inside was his favorite cologne, concert ticket stubs, a necklace he got in Hawaii and photographs.

Each person there is just that. A person.

Peace

Thank you so much for posting this. :hug:

Rest in Peace, Lance Corporal Long.

Cambodians grieve for a son
Rites for a fallen Marine tear at many war refugees

By MERRILL BALASSONE
BEE STAFF WRITER


Last Updated: March 18, 2006, 07:56:01 AM PST


Before he is laid to rest among fellow Marines, the body of Lance Cpl. Bunny Long will come to a west Modesto Buddhist temple where Cambodian-Americans from around Stanislaus County will honor their first son lost in Iraq.
The saffron-robed monks of the Wat Cambodian Buddhist Association will preside over a traditional ceremony today for hundreds of Long's family and friends.

Long, 22, was killed March 10 when a suicide bomber drove a truck filled with explosives into a building he was guarding near Fallujah, in Iraq's Anbar province. He died from shrapnel wounds to his chest, said Marine Capt. Donn Puca.

Long's family retrieved his body Thursday night on the rain-soaked tarmac at Oakland International Airport, where four Marines had escorted the casket from a Naval hospital in Delaware.

His older brother, Bunna, said the family was overwhelmed by lines of supporters who greeted them on the way home in a motorcade of police and sheriff's cars.

more...
http://www.modbee.com/local/story/11947996p-12712661c.html



Marine's death in battle more than just a number

By JEFF JARDINE
BEE LOCAL COLUMNIST


Last Updated: March 19, 2006, 05:29:07 AM PST


When U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Bunny Long was killed in Iraq last week, the 22-year-old became Stanislaus County's first casualty among first-generation Cambodian-Americans serving in the military.
His death is significant because another U.S. soldier — a beloved son, brother, friend and one of our own from the valley — has died in battle.

And it's significant because Long represents another chapter in the history of our melting-pot nation. He is among a generation of U.S. citizens who grew up in two cultures: the ones their families brought with them and the U.S. culture, albeit a work in progress, that was already here.

The end of the Vietnam War, followed by the flight of Cambodians from the butchering Khmer Rouge, brought thousands upon thousands of Southeast Asian refugees to the United States. Children born in this country to these families are U.S. citizens, even if others in their families are not. Such was the case with Long, whose parents speak their native language at home.

"I'm sad for his parents," said Rich Paddock of Modesto.

more...
http://www.modbee.com/local/v-dp_morning/story/11951573p-12716153c.html

The kid from up the street came home two years ago next month. I miss him. I knew the Sunday before news of his death, that one of our local lads was just killed. Driving along a country highway, looking at the fresh green hillsides and pastures, the song, the Green Grass of Home started up in my head. I knew one of our boys was coming home feet first pretty soon. I started to cry, thinking how sad the boy was to be lost in that desert and missing his home here in the rolling hills and green pastures. Sad that the only way he would touch that green green grass would be when his folks laid his body in it.

By the time his mom got those men at her door, well, I am glad I was forewarned and regained enough strength to be among those who helped her then.

An empty chair... for the kid from up the street.

And to Bunny's folks, a promise to keep working for peace, that fewer other parents will have to know their pain and loss.