Monday, November 07, 2011

The fallen

Lt Dustin Vincent died Thursday in the Iraq War. Jessica Toumani (CW 33, link has text and video) reports his survivors include his wife and their daughter and she speaks with his aunt Jennie Gonzalez who states, "I was telling him I'm really worried and that I really wished that he didn't have to go. I remember hugging him. I remember his hug and how warm and strong it was. There was a smile on his face, reassuring me it's okay, I'm going to be fine." 25-year-old Dustin Vincent hailed from Mesquite which is a city in Dallas County.

"I didn't want my baby, you know, to go away, so I told him, 'I don't agree with it, but I'm here to support you," his mother Marty Vincent tells Monika Diaz (WFAA -- link is text and video). She also explains that her daughter-in-law is Samantha Vincent and that her son "legally adopted her [Samantha's] daughter, Nacomas" because, "In case something happened to him that she and the baby would be taken care of. I sometimes think maybe Dustin knew." "He loved that little girl," Chandra Usry, Dustin Vincent's stepsister, tells Ray Villeda (NBC DFW -- link has text and video). Peter Daut (Fox 4 News -- link has text and video) speaks with Dustin Vincent's friend Amanda Northum who explains, "He was just looking forward to coming home, and coming home to family. We just really, really miss him."

The Dept of Defense released the following on Friday:

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation New Dawn.
1st Lt. Dustin D. Vincent, 25, of Mesquite, Texas, died Nov. 3, in Kirkuk province, Iraq, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with small arms fire. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 5th Field Artillery, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan.
For more information the media may contact the Fort Riley public affairs office by email at matthew.howard1@conus.army.mil, nathaniel.s.smith@us.army.mil, or by phone at 785-240-6359/4928.

Two who have been silent? Well there's the governor of Texas, Rick Perry, who apparently can't be bothered with issuing a statement because he's too busy trying to prove he can handle the presidency. Repeating, he's too busy trying to prove he's up for a new job to do his current job. Someone claiming to be "a doer" should have already "done" released a statement. What should be even more embarrassing (he's not the first governor of a state to self-embarrass over this topic) is that CBS has a station in Dallas, CBS 11, and they don't have one article about Dustin Vincent at their website. Mesquite is in their viewing area. They don't have one story. Pretty shameful. I'm not trying to be rude here but the CW's news team got a story. The CW. And the CBS station can't? Repeating, the CW got a story, CBS didn't.

Bonnie notes Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts "Priorities" went up last night. On this week's Law and Disorder Radio -- a weekly hour long program that airs Monday mornings at 9:00 a.m. EST on WBAI and around the country throughout the week, hosted by attorneys Heidi Boghosian, Michael S. Smith and Michael Ratner (Center for Constitutional Rights) -- topics explored include Occupy Wall Street, Barack and the Constitution, a report on the Coalition of Immokalee Workers efforts to get a fair wage for Florida tomato pickers and Pam Martens (CounterPunch) explains how Wall Street firms spy on protesters with tax payers footing the bill for the spying. David Bacon's latest book is Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press) which won the CLR James Award. This is from his photo essay "OCCUPY NORTHWEST - BELLINGHAM AND TACOMA:"

Occupy Tacoma Protest Camp

Grassroots people and political activists occupy parks in Bellingham and Tacoma, Washington, to support the New York City demonstration, Occupy Wall Street. Occupiers erect and live in tent camps to protest economic inequality and its impact on working people, students, the poor and the young, calling it a protest by the 99% of the people who are exploited by a system that only benefits the top 1%.


I can't find it online anywhere currently. When it is, we'll provide a link to it. The photo above is David Bacon's. He retains all rights to it and it is not a public domain photo. It is one of many in his photo essay on the Tacoma and Bellingham occupations. And there's a caption to the photo:

TACOMA, WA - 02NOVEMBER11 - Grassroots people and political activists occupy a park in Tacoma to support the New York City demonstration, Occupy Wall Street, and to protest economic inequality and its impact on working people, students, the poor and the young. They call it a protest by the 99% of the people who are exploited by a system that only benefits the top 1%. Occupiers do street theater with signs for the traffic stopped at the intersection by the camp, wearing the Guy Fawkes masks made famous in the movie V for Vendetta.
Copyright David Bacon

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