Iraq veteran's last wish has fallen victim to ax

[IndianaGreen]

Iraq veteran's last wish has fallen victim to ax

Darryl E. Owens | Sentinel Columnist
December 13, 2008

Even thousands of miles away in Myrtle Beach, S.C., Army Staff Sgt. Sandy Britt couldn't escape the grim realities of the war.

Britt was on leave from his first tour in Iraq. And the man who had braved underwater demolitions with the Navy, jumped from planes with the Army's 82nd Airborne Division and earned his way into Army Special Forces was sensing his mortality.

Should something happen to him, he told his mother, he wanted to be buried in Lake Mary under a shade tree.

Two months later, Sarah Arnold marked her birthday mourning her only son, killed Aug. 21, 2007, by a roadside bomb near Baghdad. Days later, the family picked out the final resting place for the 30-year-old Lake Mary High grad at Oaklawn Park Cemetery. After his military burial, they watched the decorated soldier's coffin retreat into the soil near a stand of tall oaks.

Last month, on Thanksgiving morning, Arnold arrived at the cemetery to refresh his flowers, and her heart sank. Her son's grave site was undisturbed -- but not the shade trees.

"The whole row was gone," recalls Arnold's husband, Steve. His stepson, he says, "told her he wanted to be buried in Lake Mary under a tree. That's why we picked this. Sandy was her only son. To walk up there and find his last wish done away with and nobody told us -- she's not taking it well at all."

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/orl-dowens1308dec13,0,7180944.story

[HopeFor2006]

1. How very sad

My heart goes out to this mother.