Rest in Peace TommyM1080.

UPDATE 17 Oct (from the Patriot Guard Riders thread): Lt. Martin's parents live in TEXAS. (TENTATIVE) They are having a FUNERAL or MEMORIAL in San Antonio on Monday, Oct. 22 or Tuesday, Oct 23. Internment will occur at the US Military Academy at West Point, New York.

Addendum: From Tom's September Update:

We're over 800 kilometers now for the total distance we've walked in this wonderful country and we've still got a few months left. I told the boys when we cross the 1K mark we’d have a near-beer keg party.

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I was overcome tonight. I learned a friend of mine was killed in Iraq yesterday. I had never gotten to meet Tom Martin, but through blogging he and I struck up an email friendship. We have traded emails throughout his long deployment.

See, Tommy had a blog: Green to Grey to Gold. He was enlisted and did a tour in the Sandbox (that's the green), got accepted to The Point (that's the grey). TommyM1080 thrived and did well and graduated an officer (that's the Gold). After graduation he learned to race drive tanks. Then he went to Ranger school. Got his unit. He was DAMNED proud of his men. One of my posts a few months back was from one of his emails to me.

Although he didn't blog this deployment, he sent many emails to a very large group of friends detailing the work and success they worked hard for in Iraq and he was looking forward to redeploying soon. He kept track of every mile he and his men walked in Iraq. I'll have to look that up and see how far that was. It was A LOT of miles.

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

1st Lt. Thomas M. Martin, 27, of Ward, Ark., died Oct 14 in Al Busayifi, Iraq, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit using small arms fire during combat operations.

He was assigned to 1st Squadron, 40th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, Fort Richardson, Alaska.

Tom's father is retired Army... his mother is still active Army. and a blogger (The Desert Chief). She did a tour in Iraq while Tom was finishing West Point... he led a sniper squad. Was just getting ready to redeploy. Just got engaged to a wonderful Army Medevac pilot.

While he was not actively blogging this tour (at the behest of command), his West Point Journal and the journals through training and Ranger School are chronicled with great humour on his blog... for instance, in order to keep spam out of his guestbook, you have to type "Beat Navy" as the security code. He and I shared a love of Calvin & Hobbs... It's just another one of those times about "the good dying young".

He leaves his parents Ed and Candy, three sisters and his fiancee Erika... and his best friends Jason, Ed & Les among so many.

Please leave your thoughts for Tommy's family on Tommy's guestbook.

DAMN. DAMN. DAMN.

COME to his assistance, All you Saints of God! Meet him, you Angels of the Lord. Receive his soul, and present it to the Most High. May Christ who called you, receive you; and may the Angels lead you into the bosom of Abraham. Eternal rest grant to him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May the souls of the faithfully departed through the mercy of God rest in peace.

Into your hands, O Lord, we humbly entrust our brother. In this life you embraced him with your tender love; deliver him now from every evil and bid him enter eternal rest.

The old order has passed away: welcome him then into paradise, where there will be no sorrow, no weeping nor pain, but the fullness of peace and joy with your Son and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever.

Amen.