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Sunday, January 04, 2009

Benjamin Tollefson, SF Bay Area Hero, Dies in Iraq
On May 30, 1868 General Orders No. 11 was issued at Washington, D.C. The document established Memorial Day in the United States. Although the document was signed nearly 141 years before Ben Tollefson's death, it was written with him in mind. Here are some of the words from General Orders No. 11:

"Their soldier lives were the reveille of freedom to a race in chains, and their deaths the tattoo of rebellious tyranny in arms. We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance. All that the consecrated wealth and taste of the nation can add to their adornment and security is but a fitting tribute to the memory of her slain defenders. Let no wanton foot tread rudely on such hallowed grounds. Let pleasant paths invite the coming and going of reverent visitors and fond mourners. Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic."

John Simmerman of the Contra Costa Times wrote a touching report. In part, here it is: 

Ben Tollefson, of Concord, married his high-school sweetheart on Dec. 6, 2007, just before the Army sent him off for training in the Midwest.

He was headed to Iraq as an infantryman, but not before the birth of his first child. So in late April, Tollefson jetted home from Fort Riley, Kan., and drove fast to Travis Air Force Base. His wife, Natalie, was in labor.

"He was able to get there 45 minutes before Mac was born," said Ed Hartley, Natalie's father. "She held on until he got there. Or Mac held on."

Mac James weighed 7 pounds, 7 ounces. Tollefson was "ecstatic" as a father, Hartley said. The new family spent the summer in Kansas, before Tollefson shipped out in late September.

"He wanted to be a soldier for so long," Hartley said. "He knew what would be over there. He knew where he was going to go, and he didn't shy away from it at all."

On Wednesday, the 22-year-old husband, father and graduate of Berean Christian High School in Walnut Creek was killed after insurgents lobbed a mortar at his unit, according to Defense Department officials. Tollefson, the youngest of three siblings, died in Balad from injuries sustained in the attack in Ghazaliya, a Baghdad neighborhood.

You can read the full story by John Simmerman of the Contra Costa Times that appeared in the San Jose Mercury News. You can also see video on demand here of the ABC-7 news coverage of Benjamin Tollefson's death.
"Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, 
no ravages of time testify to the present or to the coming generations 
that we have forgotten as a people 
the cost of a free and undivided republic." 
.

on Sunday, January 04, 2009

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