Bin Laden News Hard to Grasp for Families of Service Members and Those Who Have Fallen

News of the American special-forces strike that killed 9/11 mastermind Osama Bin Laden no doubt hit the thousands of Americans with family members serving in the Middle East with a rush of conflicting emotions.

Will the war in Afghanistan end sooner? Does it mean our soldier will get to come home faster? Certainly, it’s an important step on the long, dark, costly road America has traveled since Sept. 11, 2001.

Beyond that it is hard to grasp--certainly for myself, as the father of a U.S. Army infantryman now serving in Afghanistan. I can’t even fathom how it must feel for the families of those who have served and died in the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to information from Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Tacoma, 126 Washington residents have died in the three campaigns that followed 9/11: First, Operation Enduring Freedom, then Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation New Dawn.

At least four of them were servicemen from Kirkland, all slain in Iraq. How does this latest news affect their families?

“I’m not ready to speak to that right now,” said Linda Clanin-Swanberg, a Finn Hill resident and mother of Marine Lance Cpl. Shane Clanin-Swanberg, killed at Camp Ramadi in Iraq on Sept. 15, 2005.

“I need time to think about it.”

She added when we spoke Monday morning that she knows well the family of Marine Lance Cpl. Nathan Raymond Wood, like Swanberg a graduate. He was slain at 19 while taking part in the brutal battle of Fallujah on Nov. 9, 2004.

“We’re actually a tight-knit group. We’re gold star families. We get together as a way to share our grief.”

Gold star families are those who have lost an immediate family member to combat in any branch of the American armed forces.

Who can blame her for not knowing what to say, or exactly how she feels?

For me, there is a certain sense of closure with Osama bin Laden gone; he suddenly ceases to be an entity to consider, or fear. But his death is not something I can feel happy about. The whole thing is tragic and sad.

What remains foremost in my mind, and I hope for all Americans, are the service men and women now in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries in the Middle East--and especially I think about those who sacrificed everything.

America must not ever forget those Americans. So today, let us remember those four soldiers from Kirkland.

•Army Spc. Jacob Robert Herring was killed April 28, 2004, in Mosul, Iraq, after his Stryker vehicle struck an improvised explosive device near Talafar. He was a member of the 5^th Battalion, 20^th Infantry Regiment, 3^rd Brigade Combat Team of the 2^nd Infantry, based at Fort Lewis.

He was a graduate of , a popular captain of the football team. He had been wounded before. He was 20 when he died. "He was the ultimate leader," said his football coach, Tim Tramp. He had enlisted in the Army four days before 9/11.

•Army Pfc. Andrew Martin Ward gave his life Dec. 5, 2004, in Ramadi, when his unit was attacked by enemy forces using small arms fire. He was a member of the 44^th Engineer Battalion, 2d Infantry, based in Korea.

In his obituary in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, his mother, Estrella O’francia Tankersly, wrote that he was a gentle person who disdained the materialistic life and felt best when he was in the great outdoors “where eagles soar, bear and deer roam, where the snowcapped mountains meet the morning sunrise and the sunsets reached the ocean breeze.” He attended Lindbergh High in Renton. He was 25 when he died.

•Wood was shot and killed when his unit was conducting a door-to-door sweep in a Fallujah apartment building. He was in the 3^rd Battalion, 1^st Marine Regiment, 1^st Division.

He was a 2003 gradate of Juanita High and joined the Marines with several friends after graduation. Known as adventurous, a bit mischievous and an All-American kid, he loved the outdoors. It hit his friends and the entire Juanita community hard when he died at 19. He had worked at the Woodinville 12 theater complex with my daughter Tara and son Clint, who is now in Afghanistan.

“He was a nice guy, really cool,” says Tara, who worked with him for maybe a year. “He would joke around, but he was serious as well, kind of quiet.”

•Clanin-Swanberg was 24 when he died from indirect fire at Camp Ramadi. He had only been in Iraq 10 days and had emailed his mom the day before he died. “I will start my first mission tomorrow. Mom, I love you very much.”

He was with the 3^rd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1^st Division, based at Twentynine Palms, Calif.

He loved sports like racquetball and soccer, and loved to golf with his father, Brian Swanberg. He was born in Bellevue, but grew up on Finn Hill and graduated from Juanita in 2000. He was a TOW missile operator and M-60 machine gunner who once fired a round as a demonstration on Tom Arnold’s “The Best Damn Sports Show.” With cameras rolling, he hit the mark precisely. He had an easy smile that his mom says would fill a room.

For more about these brave young men, see timeofremembrance.org.

From my perspective, if there is any comfort to take from this sudden, startling development, it is that perhaps it marks the beginning of the end of this terrible chapter in American history.