Sunday, January 08 2006 @ 06:09 AM MST
Contributed by: River97
Views: 2,272
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 www.post-gazette.com -- By Moustafa Ayad, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette -- Sitting in the car with Lt. Col. Michael E. McLaughlin's 18-year-old daughter, her father's friend of 21 years had just broken the news of his death.
During years of friendship and service in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard, Lt. Col. McLauglin and retired Capt. Brad Mifsud had a bond so close that they promised each other if something were ever to happen to either one of them, they would be there for the other's family.
Now, after helping tell his best friend's wife, Tammy McLaughlin, that her 44-year-old husband was killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq Thursday, Capt. Mifsud struggled with how to look the rest of the family -- daughters, Ericha, a freshman at University of Pittsburgh in Johnstown, and 9-year-old Erin -- in the eyes and tell them, too.
"We had talked about it enough times during our careers that you sort of learned your place," said Capt. Mifsud, a state police corporal who heads the Mercer County State Police Crime Investigation Unit. "But nothing can prepare you for telling your best friend's daughter that he isn't coming home."
The news of Lt. Col. McLaughlin's death, the first Pennsylvania Army National Guard officer to be killed in action since World War II, came on the heels of two days of bombings and ambushes in Iraq that claimed the lives of 11 U.S. soldiers and nearly 200 Iraqis.
Lt. Col. McLaughlin, of Mercer, died when a suicide bomber rushed through a crowd of Iraqi police recruits in Ramadi and detonated a bomb that also killed a Marine and nearly 80 Iraqis.
Mercer and Lawrence counties became home to two combat deaths on the same day. Marine Cpl. Albert Gettings, 27, of New Castle, was shot to death on Thursday when his unit was ambushed while on patrol near Fallujah, the Defense Department announced Friday.
Col. Grey Berrier, an extremely close friend of Lt. Col. McLaughlin, having known him since 1997, told his comrade's wife about his death along with Capt. Misfud.
"It was very difficult," said Col. Berrier as he paused to sigh. "But, I was proud to do it because I knew his family and loved Mike."
Col. Berrier said Lt. Col. McLaughlin had deployed to the Al-Anbar province in Iraq in July 2005 as the brigade effects coordinator for the 2nd Brigade Combat, 28th Infantry Mechanized Division. There, Lt. Col. McLaughlin held meetings with local government officials and Iraqi militia leaders in order to help stabilize a province that became increasingly violent.
On Thursday, Lt. Col. McLaughlin assembled several troops in an effort to fill the ranks of the local Iraqi police force at a glass factory, which was also his staging grounds for a local employment drive.
"Lt. Col. McLaughlin was not content with orchestrating and planning behind the scenes, but was an officer that led from the front," said Col. Berrier.
Standing outside the glass factory, in a swarm of Iraqi recruits, a suicide bomber inched close to Lt. Col. McLaughlin's personal security guards and donated a belt of explosives that sent debris and shrapnel at every angle and into Lt. Col. McLauglin's head, according to a statement from the Pennsylvania Army National Guard.
With a significant wound to the back of his head, Lt. Col. McLaughlin turned to his injured personal security detail officers and inquired about their well-being. Waving off medical attention, he asked them to check on the soldiers under his command.
"In an act of extreme selflessness, he stated that he was OK, but to concentrate on saving the lives of his men," said Col. Berrier.
Lt. Col. McLaughlin died shortly after giving that instruction, according to the Guard.
Lt. Col. McLaughlin, a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh with a bachelor's degree and master's in engineering, will be posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and the Combat Action Badge.
In civilian life, he was working as a private construction contractor, a decision he made after the U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit on his behalf in 2004 against a Mercer County paper company that fired him because of his military obligations in 2001.
The lawsuit is ongoing. |
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To his family I know at this time no words will comfort you in your time of loss, but do know this that he did not die in vain.
Thank God their are men and women of courage willing to step forward and fight this fight. I will always stand in awe of their deeds and who they were.