Purple Heart Is No Shield: Sub title - "We Were Supposed To Raise Our Kids Together"

Unfortunately, while the W, Rove and Co. are busy pumpin' and pimpin' their propoganda this week as the rhetoric ratchets to the stratosphere, GIs still die. Blood spills and there is no remorse or grief from the shrub and his pals in charge.

To make matters worse, this poor soul was already wounded. And, this GI was on his second tour - the article doesn't say, but was he on his second tour of duty by choice is an interesting question. I'm pasting in the whole article for y'all:

When Marine Lance Cpl. Brandon Dewey of Tracy survived his wounds from a car bomb during the battle for Fallujah in 2004 and was awarded the Purple Heart, his family took it as a good omen.

"He had already missed the big one,'' said his stepfather, Scott Conover. "We figured he was safe now, that someone was looking out for him.''

But on Friday, Dewey, 20, was killed along with Marine Cpl. Carlos Arellanopandura, 22, of Los Angeles in another attack involving a car bomb during combat in Iraq's Anbar province, the Marine Corps said Tuesday. Both were members of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force.

Dewey, an Eagle Scout known for his sense of humor and his smile, was scheduled to return home from his second tour of duty in Iraq in April. His mother, Julia Conover, and her husband learned of his death Friday night when they returned home from dinner and saw two Marines in full dress uniform in a van across the street.

"You know when they dispatch a pair of Marines to your house,'' Scott Conover said. "You know it's the worst possible news.''

Dewey grew up in Tracy. He enjoyed hiking, camping and rock climbing with the Boy Scouts and dreamed of joining the Marines before following his father, Mark, into law enforcement. His father is a former Union City police officer.

"He always wanted to be a Marine because they were the toughest,'' his stepfather said. "He was a Boy Scout, and in his mind, that was preparing for the Marines.''

Dewey enlisted under a delayed-entry program before he even graduated from Tracy's Merrill F. West High School in 2003. In the battle for Fallujah, Dewey was sprayed with shrapnel from a suicide car bombing, suffering injuries to his face, neck and legs. He spent a day and a half in a field hospital before rejoining his unit.

Marilyn Chorley, organizer of Military Moms Tracy, said Dewey grew up with her son, who is also serving in Iraq, and was in her Sunday school class at St. Paul's Lutheran Church.

"He was a very special kid,'' she said. "This is too much.'' Dewey, she said, is the fifth Tracy resident to die in Iraq. Dewey's sister, Elyse Dewey, 18, is also in the military. She was rushed home on leave Friday from Florida, where she is in cryptology training for the Navy.

On a Web site dedicated to Brandon Dewey's memory, she wrote a heartfelt farewell to her older brother. "I miss you so much," she wrote. "You were not supposed to go. We were supposed to raise our kids together, and they were supposed to be close like us with our cousins.

"You were supposed to be at my wedding and I was supposed to be at yours. You're supposed to make me laugh when my heart gets broken. I'm supposed to make fun of your big nose. ... You were supposed to come back."

Dewey's body is expected to arrive in San Francisco on Thursday. A funeral, with a Marine Corps honor guard, is tentatively scheduled for Monday. He will be buried in the "Little Arlington" section of Tracy Cemetery.

Thanks Shrub - you are the reason the "Little Arlington" second of the Tracy Cemetary is growing and there is no end in sight.