Update: Marine in Afghanistan

By Jennifer J. Foster

Published: May 22, 2008

On Tuesday, I told you about a Marine in Afghanistan who had a close call in a gunbattle with a Taliban fighter. The exchange was caught in a series of dramatic photographs that illustrate the “clear and present” of the phrase “clear and present danger.“

Somewhere in Pennsylvania, Marine wife Bobbie Bee was surfing the Internet and saw the pictures on a blog she reads.

She knew immediately, she said, that the Marine who had escaped death was her Marine: Sgt. William O. Bee.

Bobbie Bee is seven months’ pregnant with the couple’s first child, a boy. She said she feared going into early labor when she saw what had happened.

The entire follow-up story is worthwhile, but these lines at the end crystalize this experience and the way members of the Armed Forces, and their families, must live every day:

Much was made of the photographs, which showed Sgt. Bee defending a mud wall without a helmet. Bobbie said her husband told her he was changing into fresh clothes when the company came under gunfire.

“He said he turned around and did what he had to do.“

They do what they have to do so that we can do what we want to do.

Honor them. And thank them.