Body of first soldier kidnapped in Iraq sent home for burial

another life snuffed out too soon in this terrible war

Published on April 23, 2008 By warreni In Current Events

This is one of countless stories of tragedy that have come out of the Second Iraq War.

Matt Maupin, a staff sergeant with the U.S. Army, was the first soldier kidnapped in this conflict, back in 2004. He was just twenty years old then. He used to work at Sam's Club in the small town of Batavia, OH to make extra money for college. For the same reason, he joined the Army Reserves: like many of the members of our all-volunteer army, he needed a way to help pay for college. Friends and coworkers remember him as intelligent and introverted, a hard worker who liked taking orders and performing tasks.

At 20 years of age, I was living at home and halfway through my baccalaureate degree. Maybe I was just luckier than Matt.

Today, I live with my wife, four cats, and a few lizards just a few miles away from the house I stayed in then and where my parents still live. Matt's parents will be attending his funeral in Cincinnati on Sunday.

Comments

ParaTed2k

on Apr 24, 2008

He wasn't "kidnapped" he was captured and murdered. Why do you feel the need to politicize his death for your own agenda?

warreni

on Apr 24, 2008

ParaTed2k

comment 1

He wasn't "kidnapped" he was captured and murdered. Why do you feel the need to politicize his death for your own agenda?

ParaTed2K,

Actually, he was kidnapped or captured and murdered. All of those things are true. And my only agenda in posting this is to point out a senseless loss of a young man whose potential will never be realized. If our country is now so polarized that we cannot even find common ground in mourning the deaths of our soldiers, then I fear we may have passed some invisible and appalling point of no return. I sincerely hope that is not the case.

ParaTed2k

on Apr 24, 2008

Yes, it is important to mourn his death, and if you are against the war then protest it. But please don't use his death as a means of protest. It only belittles his service and makes you look like a petty ghoul.

warreni

on Apr 24, 2008

ParaTed2k

comment 3

I'm not using his death as a protest, ParaTed2K. Reread the article carefully if you don't understand what I am saying.

I am saying that it is a tragedy that this young man lost his life at such a young age; it is a tragedy that his parents must spend this Sunday burying their son, when he should have outlived them by many decades; it is a tragedy that this small Ohio town that clung to hope for so long that its lost son would come home has a sad and bitter end to that years-long vigil. If you find some cause to disagree with those statements, then I'm afraid we don't have anything left to talk about.

ParaTed2k

on Apr 24, 2008

Then I apologize for misunderstanging your intent here.

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