Opinion
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No better soldier
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Published: July 10, 2009
We were yanked back to reality Tuesday at the news of the death of a local soldier in Afghanistan. Army Capt. Mark A. Garner of State Road near Elkin was killed Monday, one of seven U.S. troops killed on one of the deadliest days for American forces since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
This tragedy reminds us that the U.S. offensive against the Taliban now under way will not be won without sacrifice and that the families of our troops and indeed the entire community are not immune to the pain of that sacrifice.
The devastating news of Capt. Garner's death has shaken his close family and the tight-knit Elkin community. Described as unassuming and friendly -- "just a nice guy" -- by his friends, Garner was a high-school athlete who wanted to be a soldier. "He was very committed," Perry Lloyd, one of Garner's coaches at Elkin High School, told the Journal. "I don't think America could have a better soldier."
Garner, 30, was a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., and a career Army officer. He was commander of Company B, 1st Battalion of the 4th Infantry Regiment, Joint Multinational Readiness Center, based in Hohenfels, Germany. He was married to Nickayla Myers Garner, who also attended Elkin High School.
New York Times columnist Bob Herbert, writing this week about the death of former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, the architect of the Vietnam War, said, "Wars are now mostly background noise, distant events overshadowed by celebrity deaths and the antics of Sarah Palin, Mark Sanford and the like."
We should feel shame that we sometimes let ourselves forget that there are Americans like Mark A. Garner who step forward and willingly take on the grievous burden of fighting our wars and defending our country. Indeed, there are thousands of Mark Garners from thousands of towns and cities, large and small, serving with honor in harm's way today. They do it with a sense of duty and responsibility.
We suspect that as a commander, a leader of such men and women, Capt. Garner would prefer that as we honor his sacrifice and mourn his passing this week that we pray not for him, but for them.
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