Fallen Marine Sgt. William Stacey's last letter, "it was all worth it"

This is what makes them so different from the rest of us. This last letter to Sgt. Stacey's family tells them that for all the talk for and against what he was doing, he believed he was making a difference in this world. He didn't serve to do anything other than do some good for someone. We can talk about everything else but in the end, this is what it all comes down to. They are willing to die for each other, surrender whatever comforts they have at home to travel around the world but once they do, most of the country moves on, forgetting about them.

Fallen Marine’s letter: 'it was all worth it'
February 2, 2012
Tony Perry in San Diego

A flag-draped casket containing the remains of Sgt. William Stacey, a Marine from Camp Pendleton who was killed this week in Afghanistan, arrived Thursday at the military mortuary at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.

Stacey, 23, a member of the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, was killed Tuesday by a roadside bomb while on a walking patrol in Now Zad, a onetime Taliban stronghold in Helmand province.

Like many military members deployed to a warzone, Stacey, whose parents are history professors at the University of Washington, left a letter to be read in the event of his death. The Seattle Times published the letter, with the family’s permission. It read, in part:

"My death did not change the world; it may be tough for you to justify its meaning at all. But there is a greater meaning to it. Perhaps I did not change the world. Perhaps there is still injustice in the world. But there will be a child who will live because men left the security they enjoyed in their home country to come to his.
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UPDATE

Fallen Seattle Marine's letter brings comfort, inspiration
By JOHN DONOVAN, KOMO-TV
Published 10:52 a.m., Saturday, February 4, 2012
In a letter left behind for his family, a Seattle Marine who was recently killed in the line of duty is providing inspiration to all of us.

Sgt. William Stacey was on foot patrol Tuesday in Afghanistan when an enemy bomb went off, killing the 23-year-old.

Though he is now gone, Stacey is still speaking through a letter he left his parents to open in case he didn't make it home from the war.

"My death did not change the world," he begins, but where he goes next is startling in its optimism.

This son of teachers who never loved school but in the Marines he thrived, was just weeks away from coming home after five deployments.

His letter was weighing what would make dying worth it.

"...there is a greater meaning to it," he writes. And obviously he has seen a lot of kids during his time in the Marines, because he then says: "there will be a child who will live."
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