Saving private Three
 

http://www.itv.com/News/Articles/Sav...n-Hubbard.html

Many ways in which to look at this.

That's very, very depressing.

Quite the stuff this family's made of. Notice how the two brothers went in after the first one was killed. I mean it in a good way to say "they were asking for it". Real heroes, sad ending.

Wow

Why? They all volunteered. They knew the risks.

You know the risks of crossing the road.
That does not mean it is not a tradgedy if you get run over.

I'm trying to put myself in his shoes. I can't do this with much success, as I've only one brother to imagine blown up or dead under a helicopter.

Most days I read about soldiers dying or being wounded and it goes in one ear and out the other. Not so here.

Allow him to continue to serve . . . there are sufficient stateside billets for him to fill.

If I knew the cars would be aiming for me and I still decided to cross I accepted the risk. That isn't tragedy, it's a calculated risk.

I'm not being callous. I can understand why the brothers joined up but they understood the risks, especially if they were combat arms. There is nothing to feel depressed about. They volunteered. Have a drink to celebrate their life not mourn their loss. They died doing what they wanted to do.

Right. And of course crossing the road is not risky if the cars don't aim for you.

Losing a loved one is tragic, losing a family member is worse, and losing two long before they're meant to die must be fairly Hellish. No matter how much they 'knew the risks'.

Did the Navy also realize it might not be such a good idea to put all the siblings of a family on the same ship:nope:?

There is more risk when they are aiming to hit you.

They went to war. War is killing. They didn't join the Boy Scouts and go to a Jamboree and have a tragic accident. They joined an army and went to a war. Tragedy would be if they didn't have a choice, if they didn't want to join the army and they didn't want to be in Iraq.

If you researched the Sullivan's you would find they wanted to be on the same ship. You would also find that they were encouraged to split but they made the decision to stick together.
These brothers were not in the same unit and they didn't die at the same time.

But on the other hand, there's a very small risk that both brothers, out of the entire coalition occupation forces, would be the ones to die. It's been a while since I've taken stats, but I think that risk is 1/168,000 multiplied by 1/168,000. It's pretty darned unlucky and pretty darned sad.

They named a destroyer after them. It was also mentioned in the movie Svaing Private Ryan.

Tough on the the family to lose the two sons. Will the survivor be given a state side posting (A.K.A. desk job) or will he be given a discharge??

My cousin Frankie.

I had to wipe away the tears.

I once wrote a thread, somewhere, I forget, on another board, that looked at the statistical chances of death while a servicemember in the US Armed Forces . . . The statistical risk of death per 100,000 (staticians average) was higher then national rate of homicide but lower then say dying in an auto collision.

And depending on the occupation there are other, and some more hazardous, jobs outside of the military with the same fatality rate.

I need to look this up, as I wrote it up a year ago, and can't find it . . . give me time.