A HEROES LAST REQUEST

From the New York Post

A soldier killed this week in Iraq is speaking from beyond the grave -through a lengthy blog posting he left behind in which he asks for people not to cry, recalls his love for his wife and meditates on the importance of doing one's duty. "What I don't want this to be is a chance for me, or anyone else to be maudlin," wrote Maj. Andrew Olmsted, 38, a member of the 1st Infantry Division who was shot to death Thursday in Baghdad. Olmsted - a prolific blogger who kept his own site and wrote regularly for the Web site of his home- state paper, Denver's Rocky Mountain News - wrote with humor and bravery, and had a friend post a prepared statement on andrewolmsted.com after his death.

Quoting from his blog...."On a similar note, while you're free to think whatever you like about my life and death, if you think I wasted my life, I'll tell you you're wrong. We're all going to die of something. I died doing a job I loved. When your time comes, I hope you are as fortunate as I was. The duly-elected American government decided to go to war in Iraq. (Even if you maintain President Bush was not properly elected, Congress voted for war as well.) As a soldier, I have a duty to obey the orders of the President of the United States as long as they are Constitutional. I can no more opt out of missions I disagree with than I can ignore laws I think are improper. I do not consider it a violation of my individual rights to have gone to Iraq on orders because I raised my right hand and volunteered to join the army. Whether or not this mission was a good one, my participation in it was an affirmation of something I consider quite necessary to society. So if nothing else, I gave my life for a pretty important principle; I can (if you'll pardon the pun) live with that."

"......perhaps my death can serve as a small reminder of the costs of war. Regardless of the merits of this war, or of any war, I think that many of us in America have forgotten that war means death and suffering in wholesale lots. A decision that for most of us in America was academic, whether or not to go to war in Iraq, had very real consequences for hundreds of thousands of people. Yet I was as guilty as anyone of minimizing those very real consequences in lieu of a cold discussion of theoretical merits of war and peace. Now I'm facing some very real consequences of that decision"