{"id":5968,"date":"2015-10-23T14:34:48","date_gmt":"2015-10-23T18:34:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/?p=5968"},"modified":"2017-05-23T11:38:58","modified_gmt":"2017-05-23T15:38:58","slug":"there-will-be-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/?p=5968","title":{"rendered":"There will be more"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In\u00a0Iraq yesterday, as part of our new mission to &#8220;train and advise&#8221; local soldiers fighting the Islamic State, the U.S. led a commando raid to rescue 70 hostages.\u00a0The\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.armytimes.com\/story\/military\/careers\/army\/2015\/10\/23\/dod-identifies-soldier-killed-commando-raid-iraq\/74449954\/\" target=\"_blank\">Army Times today reported<\/a> the name of the American soldier killed in the raid:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Master Sgt. Joshua L. Wheeler, 39, died Thursday in Iraq\u2019s Kirkuk province from wounds received by enemy small-arms fire, according to the DoD announcement.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>An Oklahoma boy, Wheeler joined the Army in 1995, so he would have been\u00a0eligible for retirement. He had certainly earned it in those 20 years: After serving three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as a Ranger, he joined Special Ops &#8211; and went back to Iraq and Afghanistan <strong>ELEVEN<\/strong> times.<\/p>\n<p>He was married and had four children. His grandparents are still alive. At 39, plenty of time to enjoy it all.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, this soldier went on a pre-dawn commando\u00a0raid of an Islamic State prison, alongside\u00a0Kurdish peshmerga fighters. Four peshmerga were wounded, and several Islamic State militants were killed.<\/p>\n<p>The hostages, who were in imminent danger of being executed, walked away.<\/p>\n<p>Wheeler will not turn 40 next month.<\/p>\n<p>Courageous, noble, tough &#8211; Wheeler was surely all those things. But he has another distinction now, on top of his 11 Bronze Stars and other medals.<\/p>\n<p>The Army Times duly noted:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>He is the first American service member killed in action by enemy fire while fighting Islamic State militants.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>When I read that sentence, I felt utter despair.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;The first&#8221; <\/em><\/p>\n<p>There will be more.<\/p>\n<p>More in the\u00a0long procession of dead and maimed and mentally scarred soldiers.<\/p>\n<p>In the year I was born, 1959,\u00a0Major Dale R. Buis and Master Sargeant Chester M. Ovnand became the first Americans to die in the Vietnam War. That\u00a0war also began with a &#8220;train and advise&#8221; mission.<\/p>\n<p>If I live to be 100, will the United States still be at war?<\/p>\n<p>God help us.<\/p>\n<p>Day 109: A 2014 penny, the first year of the U.S. war against the Islamic State.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Day-109-2014.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-5974\" src=\"http:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Day-109-2014-300x253.jpg\" alt=\"Day 109 2014\" width=\"300\" height=\"253\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Day-109-2014-300x253.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Day-109-2014-1024x865.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In\u00a0Iraq yesterday, as part of our new mission to &#8220;train and advise&#8221; local soldiers fighting the Islamic State, the U.S. led a commando raid to rescue 70 hostages.\u00a0The\u00a0Army Times today reported the name of the American soldier killed in the raid: Master Sgt. Joshua L. Wheeler, 39, died Thursday in Iraq\u2019s Kirkuk province from wounds &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/?p=5968\" class=\"more-link\">read more <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">There will be more<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5973,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[318],"tags":[36,105,382,393,392,394,391],"class_list":["post-5968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-refraction","tag-36","tag-death","tag-iraq","tag-islamic-state","tag-soldiers","tag-vietnam","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5968"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5978,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5968\/revisions\/5978"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}