Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Marine Sgt. Gary S. Johnston



A good PGR friend of mine sent this to me, SergeantMoon. His son is a Marine, Gary was his son’s best friend.

The letter is form the BBC and is about their visit to Winthorst, TX

The link is the audio file (mp3 format) from the BBC.
As Mr. Johnston says, we in middle America are VERY proud of our country and our sons.




In Memory of:

Marine Sgt. Gary S. Johnston


21, of Windthorst, Texas; assigned to 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion, 3rd Marine Division, III Marine Expeditionary Force Okinawa, Japan; died Jan. 23 while conducting combat operations in Anbar province, Iraq.







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Dear Angela,

Thank you so much for inviting us into your home, and for telling us about Gary and how you and all your friends and neighbors in Windthorst have been coping with his loss.

Jamie and I found the experience very moving. Neither of us have seen anything quite like the scenes at Gary's funeral. I know you are very proud of him, and the town of Windthorst certainly gave him an amazing send-off.

It is obvious to us that Texas looks after its own, and the sense of community spirit in Windthorst is very strong.

I am sending you a copy of the piece we did. I hope you think it is okay. If you have any problems playing it please let me know and I will send you a CD in the post instead. I am sorry I didn't get to send this yesterday, but I have had a few computer problems here...

Thanks again for having us, and for feeding us!!! Please pass on my regards to Nebin, and say hello and thank you to everyone else who made the effort to come over on Wednesday evening.

It was a pleasure to meet you all.

Take care, and as I say, please let me know if you have any problems with the mp3 file.

Piers.

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The Audio Clip









6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very...very moving story. I found myself getting misty while listening to the audio. God bless the men & women of the Armed forces.

DNR said...

I did too, Mrs. JG... and AMEN!

Freddie said...

"It needs to be finished... We don't need to abort early. We need to get the job done."

"We already know that the terrorists, and that whole region, is where they're spawning from, have done attacked us once, and they will do it again if we leave that area unfinished."

"Small town America is PROUD to be American." (Emphasis added.)

Amen indeed.

DirkStar said...

Stop trying to make me cry...

powerful stuff.


Now, off we go into the wild blue yonder...

Anonymous said...

Thank you for all the nice words, as Christmas approaches, the loss of Gary seems to be magnified, our memories of Gary becomes more important. The support of our family, friends, neighbors and most of all our new adopted sons and daughters of the United States Marine Corp, whose calls, e-mails,cards and most of all visits bring us a little bit of Gary and with that, it allows us to keep putting one foot in front of the other and move forward.
God Bless our nation and the men and women in our military who sacrifice in harms way so we can enjoy the freedom and safty to celebrate this season in peace, comfort and joy.

Merry Christmas

Johnston Family

DNR said...

Thanks for stopping by. God bless.