This is one American mother's story published in our news today. The link to the full article is at the end of this post.
Sirko, 20, went to Iraq in January 2005 as a combat medic. He died on April 17, 2005 of "non-combat-related injuries".
The army said he died in his sleep. His mother believed he was overworked, often operating for 24 hours a day on poor food. He lost 20 kilograms in his few months there.
The last time they spoke, he asked her to send a video game. "He was just a boy," she said.
His coffin was returned to North Carolina on a cargo plane. It was the last piece of "freight" unloaded, four hours after the dogs and the baggage.
Ms Lipman believes this was done after dark because of a ban by the Bush Administration on the photographing of flag-draped coffins.
Ms Lipman's story, and that of the other 2400 mothers who have lost their sons in Iraq, is beginning to loom large in the US.
In a message to Australia she said: "Quit supporting my country and supporting crimes against humanity. You don't spread peace by killing people."
Ms Lipman shuffled off, the grief all too much. She was comforted by her friend Georgia Stilwell, from Wisconsin. Ms Stillwell's son Robert, 20, came home from Iraq. But she said he is so mentally damaged that he is now jobless and homeless.
She shows his photos in a cheap, flip-out picture wallet.
There is a picture of him, shirt off, welts and blast wounds on his shoulders and chest.
There is another of the interior of a wrecked car, covered in the brains of an Iraqi her son had just killed. "Most kids his age, they hit a dog and they're disturbed," she said.
"My boy was seeing this and doing this every day," she said. "No child should have to do that."
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www.smh.com.au]