Spc. Curtis Applegate death was because he served and should be counted

I use different pictures of the Archangel Micheal when addressing the deaths of the men and women that served this nation. Spc. Curtis Applegate was one of many dying because of war but not during it. He died of a wound inside of him that no one could see with their eyes, but a wound brought home all the same. We need to count all of them if we are to really honor all of them

Some heroes fall far from the front line
News - Columnists - Issac Bailey
Saturday, Mar. 21, 2009
Seven S.C. families will be traveling to Columbia on Wednesday to participate in a ceremony to honor the state's most recent fallen heroes.

At least one more family should be added to that list.

Army Spc. Curtis Applegate, an Iraq war veteran, died earlier this year. His parents, mother Cindy and stepfather Danny Patton, live in Surfside Beach. But they didn't get to see his body return home in a flag-draped coffin.


They received a call from Colorado that said he had killed himself. He had been fighting post-traumatic stress disorder, had been ushered from doctor to doctor, had been prescribed pill after pill. He had earned multiple medals - the Purple Heart and the Army Commendation Medal with Valor to name two.

He had watched people torn apart by roadside bombs and bullets, had to make gut-wrenching decisions about when his mission meant he needed to add to that carnage.

"Curtis jumped in, saved a ton of lives," Cindy Patton said. "He just couldn't take the pain no more."

But his name wasn't on the list sent out by the S.C. Senate Republican Caucus. David L. Leimbach of Taylors was on it. So was Danny E. Maybin of Columbia, Garrett T. Lawton of Beaufort, Matthew J. Taylor of Hanahan, Richard G. Cliff Jr. and Adam M. Wenger of Mount Pleasant, and our own Ronald Phillips Jr.

Applegate's name isn't on that list or on any number of media databases of U.S. soldier deaths in Iraq.

But he was added to another one. The Army recorded more suicides in 2008 than at any time during 28 years of record keeping, a trend that has continued.
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