Source: The Kansas City Star
Ami Neiberger-Miller was on a plane to Colorado filled with soldiers on the day before President Barack Obama’s October announcement that all remaining troops will leave Iraq by the end of the year.
They were familiar company. She works for the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, or TAPS, which aids the families of fallen members of the military.
The troops were on their way back from the war. They were dusty and tired. A homecoming with family and friends awaited them at the gate.
As they exited the plane, the other passengers and crew applauded. Quietly, Neiberger-Miller began to weep.
“Do you know someone in the military?” the passenger in the adjacent seat said gently.
She nodded. Her younger brother, Army Spc. Christopher Neiberger, was killed in 2007 by a roadside bomb, three days before his 22nd birthday.
“Our homecoming was a casket,” she said.
The war began on the night of March 19, 2003. It was just past 9:30 p.m. in Washington, near dawn in Baghdad.
Millions watched it unfold. It was supposed to be quick, surgical and decisive.
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