ABOUT THE SERIES: Plato wrote that "only the dead have seen the end of war." The decision to go to war is the most important a civilized society ever makes. For a nation to win a war, its citizens must support and believe in the cause, and they must understand the consequences, casualties and costs of the decision to go to war. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are being waged thousands of miles from Merced County and the San Joaquin Valley. Yet, because no man, and no community, is an island, the effects from those wars ripple through Merced and Mercedians in ways they may not even feel. This 13-part series, "The War Comes To Merced," tries to identify and explain some of those ripple effects on real people in our community. The stories are nonpartisan and apolitical -- their only motive is to inform. With accurate information, citizens can understand what the current wars mean for them. We hope this series brings you the information you need to make your judgments about these wars.
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Saturday, Nov. 10, 2007
Semper fi: Marine's death tests faith of survivors
The war comes to Merced: First of 13 parts
The way he died -- shot in the neck and jaw by an Iraqi sniper firing through a trick taillight from the trunk of a car outside Fallujah -- makes it hard to imagine that Josh Pickard would say he was doing what he loved.
But all those who knew him best -- mother, father, brothers, friends, fellow Marines -- believe there was nowhere else he'd rather have been: a 20-year-old corporal driving a 26-ton tracked vehicle for the 2nd Assault Amphibian Battalion, Bravo Company, 3rd platoon. Team Gator. Motto: "Yat Yas."
The young man who died that December day last year left a black hole, and a warm glow, in the hearts of a lot of Mercedians -- and anyone else who got to know him. "He was a great Marine," says Cpl. Anthony Schaffer, who served in the same platoon as Josh on his second tour in Iraq. "He was probably the best (armored assault vehicle) driver I've ever seen."
This is about a kid who'd knuckled three pickup trucks -- two around telephone poles -- while as sober as his minister. (As he was enlisting, his father Larry asked the recruiter, only half-joking, whether he'd have to pay for any military gear wrecked by his son.)
A kid who convinced the Haden twins, James and Stephen, to jump into lakes from cliffs near Yosemite 100 feet high -- he also talked them into skydiving. A kid who liked shooting at coyotes and squirrels with older brother Darren, singing to Brooks and Dunn, pounding a few Bud Lights. A kid who once topped out his dad's 2002 Corvette at 176 mph. A kid who carried boxing gloves in his truck, just in case somebody wanted to go a few rounds. A kid who made a younger girl at school "crave to be in the same room with him" because he made her feel so safe.
Then, at the end of high school, just as 3-year-older brother Darren had done earlier, Josh signed up for the Marines. After boot camp, and after one seven-month hitch near Fallujah, the wild kid came home a young man. Then, less than halfway through his second tour, the invincible daredevil-turned-crew chief was KIA -- killed in action.
The story of Josh Pickard has been repeated nearly 4,000 times since the U.S. invaded Iraq in March 2003. Families and friends all across America have dreaded the arrival of soldiers and Marines in dress uniforms, bearing a message none of them wants to hear. (Josh's mom, Terri, ran back into her office at a local bank, trying to hide.)
They've sung "Amazing Grace," heard taps and bagpipes, accepted flags folded into triangles and buried their Marines, soldiers, sailors and airmen.
Each death is a pebble cast into the American pond, ripples spinning outward, washing over those left behind in waves of emotion and memory.
"Predecease" is a fancy word for your kid dying before you do. Most of the KIAs in Iraq and Afghanistan have been young men, and a few women, whose lives still stretched out to unknown and unfulfilled far horizons. They weren't supposed to come home in coffins, however dignified. They were supposed to produce grandchildren, then tend to their own parents' and grandparents' memorials.
War turns that tempo inside out. "Now you will not swell the rout," wrote A.E. Housman in "To an Athlete Dying Young" in 1896, "of lads that wore their honors out/Runners whom renown outran/And the name died before the man."
That hasn't happened -- and never will -- to Josh Pickard. Death by war in a big city absorbs of lot of those ripples in sheer anonymous numbers. Not so in Merced County, where three of its children have died on the latest battlefields of America. In a community of 250,000 -- where your cousin went to school with his cousin -- the deaths of three young people in uniform linger a lot longer and stronger than those in many other places.
