Fast forward almost 2 decades later and we find out our soldiers were torturing Iraqi prisoners and others! Spit. So infuriating!

From the Washington Post:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The remains of a U.S. Navy pilot have been found and positively identified, more than 18 years after he was shot down over Iraq and became the first U.S. casualty of the first Gulf War, the U.S. Defense Department said on Sunday.

The Pentagon’s announcement resolved questions about the fate of Captain Michael Scott Speicher, who some believed had survived his shoot-down and been taken prisoner by Iraq.

Bone fragments and skeletal remains were recovered in the desert last week by U.S. Marines stationed in Iraq’s Anbar province, thanks to a tip from an Iraqi citizen, the department said. It said they were identified as Speicher’s by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.

I remember when the Persian Gulf War started. My sister and I were sitting in a booth eating at Cole Farms in Gray, Maine when all of a sudden one of the waitresses came running out of the kitchen screaming, “The war has started!!!!!!”. We had two cousins in this war (Scotty was in the Army and Phil was in the Air Force on an aircraft carrier in the Gulf) in addition to my mother’s cousin too (Navy). It was a surreal moment. The whole place erupted in disbelief and then went silent. The silence was almost deafening, because it was as if we all were thinking of how war always ends up with dead people on both sides and no clear winner. We sat in silence crossing our fingers that the war wouldn’t go on too long. Or at least it felt that way. It was one of those moments when you just didn’t know what the future was going to hold.

Nice to know years later the first casualty of this war has been found and his family notified. I’m sure all this time they wondered if he was in a prison somewhere in Iraq or dead. I’m glad they now have some closure.