Boccieri salutes all soldiers in speech

He urged students not to think about politics when they think of veterans.
By JEANNE STARMACK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
AUSTINTOWN -- Some moments are burned into your memory for all time.
For state Rep. John Boccieri of New Middletown, D-61st, a former Air Force lieutenant and an Air Force Reserve major, three such moments are vivid with colors -- the colors red, white and blue.
The first memory, he told students gathered in the auditorium at Fitch High School during a Veterans Day ceremony Friday morning, is of flags waving brightly over graves in the Calvary Cemetery at the end of Mahoning Avenue. He was six years old and going with his father to visit the grave of his grandfather, an aircraft mechanic in World War II.
"And I remember walking through a sea of flags, touching each one," he said.
Reflecting
Thirty years later Boccieri, then a captain for the Reserve, was forever impressed by those colors again. This time, they were draped over a coffin at an airport in Kuwait where he was working in 2004 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's 747 had just taxied by, he said, when he caught sight of the flag and the coffin.
"And I wondered about the person -- male or female, how they met their fate, did they have a family? Did that person know they'd be going home that way?"
The third memory had a name and a fate to go along with the colors.
In July of 2004, Boccieri was on a flight over Iraq.
"We were ordered to land in Baghdad. We had orders to carry human remains back to Kuwait for the long journey home. Our mood was somber as we wondered who this person was."
He was Army Sgt. Dale T. Lloyd, a 22-year-old from Watsontown, Pa., who'd died in a mortar attack. He was the father of two.
"And there was Old Glory again on a coffin," he said. "And I began to reflect: It could be me in there, in that cold, metal coffin, going home."
Boccieri reflected on the recent death of Sgt. 1st Class Daniel Pratt, 48, an Austintown resident who died of a heart attack in Iraq.
A higher calling
"We wonder: Why do they serve the way they do?" he said.
"Because they believe in this country. It's a higher calling.
Boccieri said it doesn't matter whether you agree or disagree with the war in Iraq when it comes to being thankful for what veterans do.
"Be mindful -- Soldiers don't follow politics; they follow orders," he said. "Two hundred fifty-thousand troops went to Iraq and Afghanistan only because our country asked them to go.
Boccieri said it is soldiers who give us our freedoms. "Soldiers who were fathers, husbands, teachers, doctors, pilots -- who were just following orders -- died for our country," he said.
"Bones may be broken and bodies mangled in war, but the American spirit will live on."
He urged the students to use Iraq as an opportunity to renew their patriotism.
"For all soldiers, for the anonymous one on that ramp that day in Kuwait, and for Dale Lloyd and Daniel Pratt, this day and every day, I salute you," he said.
starmack@vindy.com