Soldier Posts Last Blog Item

An email making the rounds today among the federal community is the news of the death of Andrew Olmsted, a major in the Army who blogged for the Rocky Mountain News. He died of wounds suffered in an attack on his unit in As Sadiyah, Iraq.

In his blog, "From the Front Lines," Olmsted wrote about his life as a soldier fighting the war in Iraq. Olmsted's final post, which he wrote in the event he was killed in action and titled "Final Post," was posted by a friend. In it, Olmsted offers up his philosophy, musings and humor, interspersed with varied quotes from television series, Plato, movies and lyrics from songs.

"It's not fair."

"No. It's not. Death never is."

Captain John Sheridan and Dr. Stephen Franklin, Babylon 5

"They didn't even dig him a decent grave."

"Well, it's not how you're buried. It's how you're remembered."

Cimarron and Wil Andersen, The Cowboys

I suppose I should speak to the circumstances of my death. It would be nice to believe that I died leading men in battle, preferably saving their lives at the cost of my own. More likely I was caught by a marksman or an IED. But if there is an afterlife, I'm telling anyone who asks that I went down surrounded by hundreds of insurgents defending a village composed solely of innocent women and children. It'll be our little secret, ok?

I do ask (not that I'm in a position to enforce this) that no one try to use my death to further their political purposes. I went to Iraq and did what I did for my reasons, not yours. My life isn't a chit to be used to bludgeon people to silence on either side.

"His voice was a voice of reason, and was a voice of logic," Olmsted's father, Wesley, told the Boston Globe. "He would discuss issues only to make people think."