Kid from my high school (in Vermont) killed in Iraq

[wicket]

:cry: :cry: :cry:

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060809/NEWS01/608090314/1009/NEWS05

Carlton Clark was a quiet but friendly teen who was "full of sunshine" in high school in South Royalton. The lanky distance runner joined the Army so he could go to college and grew as much in confidence as he did in size, even before he was deployed to Iraq last fall.

Clark, a 22-year-old sergeant from Sharon, was killed Sunday in Baghdad when a bomb exploded near his Humvee as his unit worked to recover a broken-down vehicle, the military announced Tuesday.

People who knew, taught and were close to Clark in the Upper Valley towns people were devastated.

I didn't know him but this really hits home :( Prayers for his family. His family has asked that those wishing to memorialize him to please give blood or donate to the high school's track and field team. PM for the high school's info if you wish to do so.

[cali]

1. Condolences

to his family and the entire town of Sharon. I know what this feels like. I'm from VT also, and my little town has suffered 3 deaths of soldiers in Iraq.

[wicket]

14. Horrible :(

Vermont has taken a terrible toll from this stupid, pointless war. :cry:

[katinmn]

2. How awful. We should be investing in education

not war against people who did nothing to us.

What a waste of a precious life. :cry:

[wicket]

12. Amen to that

:cry:

[yellerpup]

3. Deepest sympathy to his family.

I will give blood this week in his honor.

[wicket]

13. Thank-you so much

:yourock:

:hug:

[Botany]

4. Blessings and prayers for his soul and his family & friends

Carlton Clark :patriot:

I wish that I could say or do something to help his family & friends
..... what a shame.




Weve been through some things together
With trunks of memories still to come
We found things to do in stormy weather
Long may you run.

Long may you run.
Long may you run.
Although these changes have come
With your chrome heart shining in the sun
Long may you run.

[wicket]

7. Beautiful picture

Thank-you :hug:

[havocmom]

5. Strength to you and all who mourn.

Sunshine on the fallen
No cannon rend their peace
Gentle is the sighing earth
At that place we lay the wreaths

Eternal spring and blossoms
beyond the season's change
Rest well and know just sunshine
And pity us our griefs






Rest well, Carlton Clark. Know we fight on for truth and justice in your name.

[wicket]

11. Thank-you very much

I'm all misty eyed now :hug:

[Major Hogwash]

6. Wow, sorry Wicket. Was he from your age group?

I was totally stunned 2 years ago when 1 of the men killed in the Iraq War was from my high school - and he had graduated the year before I did, more than 30 years ago.

It really brings the war home when you know someone who was killed there or wounded there.
I didn't know the fella that had been killed, but I knew his 2 best friends from high school and I talked to them at his funeral service they had here for him.

They were just as shocked as I was that he had been killed in Iraq.
He had already served in the Air Force for more than 20 years, and everyone thought he had retired.

He had retired, just a few years before.
But, after the Iraq War started, he signed back up.
The only ones who knew he had signed back up were his parents and his wife and other members of his family.

To know that he walked the same halls of the same high school as I did, and had the same teachers at high school as I did, and was over 50 years old - and yet was killed in the Iraq War - was creepy.

And it really reinforced just what a waste the Iraq War really, truly is to me.

[wicket]

10. He was about 5 years behind me

But my cousin knew him well and worked with him at my uncle's pizza shop :(

I am so very sorry to hear about your school mate, my god, when will this madness end? :cry:

[Breeze54]

8. I'm so sorry wicket...

Were you close to him? I feel your pain. :hug:

We have to put a stop to this BS "war"!
:grr:

[wicket]

15. I wasn't but my cousin was

Thank-you :hug:

[NewYorkerfromMass]

9. second Vermonter in two days to be killed in Iraq

"...Clark was the second Vermonter in two days to be killed in Iraq. On Friday, U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Kurt Dechen of Springfield was killed in Fallujah, a restive city west of Baghdad."

http://iraq.pigstye.net/article.php/ClarkCarltonA

[wicket]

16. My god, I can't even imagine what their families are going through

:cry:

[katinmn]

17. 27 Vermont deaths. 27 families devastated.

Twenty-seven soldiers with ties to Vermont have died in support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since March 2003:

Army Chief Warrant Officer Erik A. Halvorsen, 40, of Bennington, died April 2, 2003, when the helicopter he was in crashed near Karbala.

Marine Cpl. Mark Evnin, 21, of South Burlington, died April 3, 2003, after a fire fight near Kut.

Army Sgt. Justin Garvey, 23, who graduated from Proctor High School, was killed July 20, 2003, when the convoy he was in was attacked near Tal Afar.

Army Pvt. Kyle Gilbert, 20, of Brattleboro was killed Aug. 6, 2003, in fighting in Baghdad.

Army Capt. Pierre Piche, 29, of Starksboro, died Nov. 15, 2003, when the helicopter he was in went down in Mosul.

Army Spc. Solomon C. Bangayan, 24, of Jay, died Jan. 2, 2004, after his convoy was ambushed in Baghdad.

Vermont Army National Guard Sgt. William Normandy, 42, of East Barre, died March 15, 2004, of natural causes while training in the Kuwait desert.

Maine National Guard Spc. Christopher D. Gelineau, 23, who graduated from Mount Abraham Union High School in Bristol, died April 20, 2004, after the convoy he was in was ambushed in Mosul.

Vermont Army National Guard Spc. Alan Bean Jr., 22, of Bridport died May 25, 2004, during a mortar attack about 25 miles south of Baghdad.

Vermont Army National Guard Sgt. Kevin Sheehan, 36, of Milton died May 25, 2004, in the same attack that killed Alan Bean Jr.

Vermont Army National Guard Sgt. Jamie Gray, 29, of East Montpelier died June 7, 2004, when a bomb exploded south of Baghdad.

Marine Lt. Col. David Greene, 39, of Shelburne died July 28, 2004, when the helicopter he was piloting was hit by ground fire in Anbar Province.

North Carolina Army National Guard Staff Sgt. Michael S. Voss, 35, who graduated from Enosburg High School in 1987, was killed Oct. 8, 2004, when his convoy ran across a roadside bomb and small-arms fire near Tikrit in Iraq.

Army Maj. Charles Robert Soltes, 36, an Army reservist and 1990 Norwich University graduate from California was killed Oct. 13, 2004, in Iraq when his Humvee convoy was ambushed.

Marine Lance Cpl. Jeffery Scott Holmes, 20, of Hartford, a 2003 Hartford High School graduate, was killed in an ambush Nov. 25, 2004, while conducting house-clearing operations in Fallujah.

Marine Sgt. Jesse Strong, 24, of Albany, a 2003 graduate of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., died Jan. 26, 2005 following a roadside attack in Haditha, a town northwest of Baghdad.

Marine Lance Cpl. Adam Strain, 20, whose parents live in North Hero, was killed by a sniper Aug. 3, 2005 while on security patrol in Ar Ramadi, an insurgent stronghold 70 miles west of Baghdad in the Sunni Triangle.

Army Sgt. Michael Benson, 40, whose wife lives in Colchester, died Aug. 10, 2005 after being injured in an Aug. 2 suicide bombing in Baghdad.

Vermont Army National Guard Master Sgt. Chris S. Chapin, 39, of Proctor was killed by sniper fire Aug. 23, 2005 in Tammin, Iraq, while on a civil affairs mission.

Vermont Army National Guard 1st Lt. Mark Dooley, 27, of Wilmington was killed Sept. 19, 2005, by a roadside explosive while on a routine patrol in Ramadi.

Vermont Army National Guard Spc. Scott McLaughlin, 29, of Hardwick died Sept. 22, 2005, in surgery after being shot in the left shoulder at an observation post on the outskirts of Ramadi.

Vermont Army National Guard 2nd Lt. Mark Procopio, 28, of Burlington was killed Nov. 2, 2005, by a homemade bomb while on patrol near Ramadi.

Vermont Army National Guard Sgt. Joshua Allen Johnson, 24, of Richford died Jan. 25, 2006, in surgery after a rocket propelled grenade hit the Humvee in which he was a passenger outside of Ramadi earlier in the day.

Vermont Army National Guard Spc. Christopher Merchant, 32, of Hardwick was killed March 1, 2006, in a coordinated attack on an Iraqi police headquarters about three miles northwest of Ramadi.

Vermont Army National Guard Sgt. 1st Class John Thomas Stone, 52, of Tunbridge, was shot and killed March 29, 2006, while helping Afghan and Canadian soldiers defend a remote base west of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.

Marine Lance Cpl. Kurt E. Dechen, 24, of Springfield, died Aug. 3, 2006, of his wounds after being shot by insurgents while on a foot patrol in Fallujah, Iraq.

Army Sgt. Carlton A. Clark, 22, of Sharon, was killed Aug. 6, 2006, by a roadside bomb as his unit worked to recover a broken-down vehicle in Baghdad.

[cali]

18. Thank you for

listing all of them.

[wicket]

20. Amen

:hug: to you both

[wicket]

19. Kicked for Sgt. Clark

:kick:

[alcibiades_mystery]

21. As I said the day after the 2004 election

This war will now radiate out until everybody - and that means everybody - gets a taste of it. Fifty three million Americans pretending that they'd go relatively untouched. Wrong. Everyone gets a taste of this war, or will, eventually. Everyone.