Remembering the Fallen

This Thanksgiving there will be empty places in many homes in this country and around the world. And other homes men and women will hobbble up to the table, if they are able and bow their heads and ponder the silence. But the war goes on...remember those that we have lost.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of is scientists, the hopes of its children...This is not a way of life, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron." --Dwight D. Eisenhower

Spc. Christopher J. Coffland / age 43 / Baltimore, MD / Died of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with a roadside bomb in Wardak Province, Afghanistan / November 13, 2009.

Lance Cpl. Shawn P. Hefner / age 22 / Hico, TX / Died while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan,/ November 13, 2009.

Sgt. Benjamin W. Sherman / age 21 / Plymouth, Mass. / Sherman was one of two soldiers that went mission during a mission to recover airdropped supplies from a river in Bala Murghab, Afghanistan on November 4, 2009. On November 10 divers recovered his body from the Morghab River near Afghanistan' s border with Turkmenistan. Family members said he jumped into the river to help a fellow soldier who was struggling in the water.

Staff Sgt. Stephen L. Murphy / age 36 / Jaffery, NH / Died as a result of a non-hostile incident in Anbar province, Iraq / November 9, 2009.

Chief Warrant Officer Mathew C. Heffelfinger / age 29 / One of two soldiers killed when their helicopter experienced a hard landing in Tikrit, Iraq / November 8, 2009.

Chief Warrant Officer Earl R. Scott III / age 24 / Jacksonville, FL / The other soldiers killed in that same helicopter's hard landing in Tikrit, Iraq / November 8, 2009.