One military family, two fallen sons and one with PTSD

When I put up the post For Those I Love I Will Sacrifice

I had no idea how hard it would hit people. "Pfc. Kyle Hockenberry, of 4th Squadron, 4th Cavalry Infantry Regiment, 1st Heavy Combat Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, who was injured in an improvised explosive device attack near Haji Ramuddin, is treated by flight medic Cpl. Amanda Mosher while being transported by medevac helicopter to the Role 3 hospital at Kandahar Air Field in Afghanistan on June 15, 2011. Laura Rauch/Stars and Stripes" 28,315 read it and Time Magazine did a follow up to Hockenberry's story. There were a lot of pictures taken at the combat hospital in Afghanistan, but this one seemed to express what is really going on. The men and women serving the country put their lives on the line everyday but in the end, when the truth is told, they are willing to die for each other. They don't do it for a politician or a political cause or religious ideology. While all these things may factor in their enlisting into the military, while they are deployed, the men and women they serve with are all that matters to them.

Here is another story about love and sacrifice.

Jared Hubbard and Jeremiah Baro were friends in high school and they served together. On their second tour in Iraq, they died together. The families had the funeral for them together and they were buried together.

Jared's two brothers joined the military right after the funeral. Nathan was killed in a helicopter crash and brother Jason ended up bringing the war home trapped inside of him by PTSD.

This one family gave so much that when I read so many opinions on the worthiness of invading Iraq, opinions don't seem to matter when the people talking never knew what it was like to send a family member or serve where they did.

Wars begin and end. Politicians come and go. What has remained since this nation began is the willingness of the few to sacrifice their lives for a cause greater than themselves.

As war ends, Clovis family searches for closure
Monday, December 19, 2011

by Mike Cerre
CLOVIS, Calif. -- U.S. forces completed their withdrawal from Iraq over the weekend, and most of the troops will be home stateside by Christmas. Reporter Mike Cerre, who's covered the Iraq war for ABC7 News over the years, re-visits a family in the Central Valley, as it searches for closure.

While watching our first embedded reports from the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Lance Cpl. Jared Hubbard's family back home in Clovis, CA had very mixed emotions.

"There was an excitement that was kind of positive along with the anxiety of what could happen," Jeff Hubbard said.

His son Jared was one of the first Americans to cross into Iraq that night and into Baghdad less than a month later to a generally positive reception by Iraqis.

His unit, Second Battalion, 5th Marine unit was one of the first combat units to come home that same summer when the much of the country thought the war was winding down.

"I really think I was more realistic than the rest of the country how long it would take but still didn't think it would take this long," Jeff said.

Jared Hubbard and his high school teammate Jeremiah Baro went back with for a second tour of duty in 2004 with Second Battalion, 5th Marines as a sniper team.

They were killed together in an ambush in Ramadi, the capital of the Sunni Triangle.

Nathan and thirteen other soldiers were killed in a helicopter crash outside of Baghdad in 2007.

For the Hubbard family, the emotional rollercoaster ride that was their war in Iraq continues with Jason, their only surviving son. He was discharged from the Army and is being treated for PTSD.
read more here