The Sixty Five Hundred

Kind of an odd name for a blog huh?  What is the significance of 6500, 5772 and 728?  Where does the 713th engineering company hail from and what do they do?  Who is Sergio E Perez Jr.  and Javier Ortiz-Rivera and how are they associated with these numbers? And how in the Hell is Orville Redenbacher involved?  Well I am going to link all those things together with this blog. 

I think I will start with five thousand, seven hundred and seventy two.  That number is directly tied to Javier Ortiz-Rivera.  He was the first Military member I commemorated on Facebook, which was on November 18th of 2010.  On Veterans Day, I had decided to post on my wall every one of the deaths that were happening in the wars we were fighting.  Javier was the five thousand seven hundredth and seventy-second US Military casualty since the United States of America started invading Sovereign nations.    

Here is a story that I found today titled, “Family mourns death of Marine” about Javier written by Jeffrey Blackwell of the Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat & Chronicle. 

The family of a Marine is mourning the loss of Staff Sgt. Javier Ortiz-Rivera, who was killed Nov. 16 by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan.

On the dining room table of her small, neat First Street home, Ortiz-Rivera’s mother placed photographs of her son in his Marine uniform, with his wife, Veronica, and with their three young children, and another with his sister Glory Ortiz, brother Orlando and father Orlando Ortiz.  “There are just no words,” said Gloria Rivera, mother of the 26-year-old Marine.

Four days before his death, Ortiz-Rivera called his family in Rochester and talked about the bad phone connection and the excitement of his tour of duty in Afghanistan. Days later, sister Glory and her family found out the crushing news of Javier’s death from an improvised explosive device. “He was not just my brother,” said Glory Ortiz, 22. “He was everybody’s brother.”

Ortiz-Rivera was raised in Rochester and is a graduate of the School of Imaging and Information Technology at Edison. He joined the Marines right out of high school in 2002. His first of three tours of duty was in Iraq in 2003. He was deployed to Afghanistan in 2005 and again in September. He was due to return home in August.

According to the Defense Department, Ortiz-Rivera was killed while conducting combat operations in Helmand province of Afghanistan. He was assigned to 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.

“He was dedicated to his Marines and was proud of them,” said wife, Veronica Ortiz. “He told me he was extremely blessed to be out there with the guys he was out there with. He started a Bible study with his guys, and his faith was stronger than ever.”

Ortiz-Rivera lived with his wife and three children, Alyssa Jade, 8, Andrew Joshua, 5, and Anthony Javier, 3, in married housing at Camp Lejeune. Veronica said in an e-mail that her husband was a wonderful father. “Javier was the absolute best father any kid could ever hope for,” she wrote. “His kids were his pride and joy and of all the jobs he had, being a father was what he did best.”

Funeral arrangements are pending. Glory said her brother wanted to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery, outside Washington. She said his death is pulling the family even closer together. “The last time we talked to him, the call just kept dropping off until we just gave up,” said Glory. “He loved his family and he was a great father and a great brother to everybody.”

It seems like a lifetime ago that I reported that first one.  Now 728 posts and 20 months later we arrive at 6500 United States Military members who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the service of our Country.  Today I write about Sergio E. Perez, Jr., who served in the 713th Engineering Company, a National Guard unit out of Valparaiso, Indiana.  I wonder if he had ANY idea where, or even knew such a place existed before he was killed in the Wali Kot district in Afghanistan.  A farm boy from Indiana - I doubt it!!

I wonder how prepared this Lake Central High School graduate was for the work he was doing?  Was he trained well enough, was he mentally prepared to do the work?  I am NOT AT ALL knocking the National Guard, but I wonder if he got enough of the right kind of training.  He did go to Army boot camp and then 12b training, which is Army code for a Combat Engineer.  He also received some follow-up training, a course called Route/Reconnaissance Clearance Operations.  When I looked that up I found that their expertise is in areas such as mobility, counter mobility, survivability and general engineering.  The Army’s site showed it like a civilian might see a job description.  Here is a link to it.  http://www.goarmy.com/careers-and-jobs/browse-career-and-job-categories/construction-engineering/combat-engineer.html

I read where the Governor of Indiana said, "Every such loss is a heartbreak."  He went on to say "We are hit with special severity here because of the casualties this heroic unit has already endured.  No Guard unit in my memory has been assigned to a more dangerous mission than the 713th, and here again we see the incredible risks these citizen-Soldiers volunteer to run for the rest of us."  Maj. Gen. R. Martin Umbarger in a release said, "My heart is heavy today as I consider the soldiers of the 713th Engineer Company who, for the second time in their combat tour, have experienced the multiple loss of their team mates.  I am so fiercely proud of the service and sacrifice of these Fallen Heroes and so very grateful for their families who loved and supported them."

I still wonder what it is we are trying to accomplish in that far away land.  I know some have a very clear definition of that and strongly believe we are doing the right thing by being there, slowly and agonizingly having our Military folks killed off.  I know people who have been there and I know folks who are still there and I get both sides - some of them are for it and understand what we are doing and others just don’t get it. I have asked hundreds of time in lots of places without ever getting an answer that makes sense – what was the goal going into Afghanistan and what is the goal in Afghanistan now?  I do think it has morphed since we started, in an attempt by our Government to save face - I believe.  Nothing I can say will change any of it but I will continue to say what I think and how I feel.  Do you not wonder -  did Sergio understand and believe in our mission and goals there?  Did he join the Guard just to get out of small town Indiana?  Did he go in to take advantage of the GI bill?  What was his motivation?  I will raise up some prayers to whichever God you worshipped.  Sergio, Thank you for making the sacrifice for me!      

Oh and by the way, Orville Redenbacher grew up in the same small town in Indiana that Javier did.