James Healy obituary
Once upon a time, bigger newspapers routinely had reporters write up the obits or, at least, flesh out the ones of general news interest. In Sunday’s Los Angeles Times, James Healy gets just such an obit.
A brief excerpt:
When he wasn’t defusing roadside bombs, Army Sgt. James K. Healy often could be found drawing, taking out the stress of each day by creating cartoon characters of family members and friends.
“Any time he would sit down in the evenings, he would have a sketchbook with him. He was always drawing something,” said his wife, Shannon, 23. “I have books and books full of his drawings.”
Family members said Healy, 25, an avid “Star Wars” enthusiast from Hesperia, was the unofficial artist for the Ft. Knox, Ky.-based 703rd Explosive Ordnance Detachment while it was fighting in Afghanistan. He designed a logo for his company and made signs that some of the soldiers hung on their doors.
At home with his wife and 15-month-old son Wyatt, he “would draw Wyatt and I as comic characters and himself as well,” his wife said. “He would do little comic strips of the three of us . . . as he did one of us when Wyatt was first born.”
Healy was killed Jan. 7 on his second tour of duty when his vehicle struck a roadside bomb in Laghar Juy, Afghanistan, southeast of Kabul and in a mountainous region on the eastern border with Pakistan. Also killed in the attack was Army Maj. Michael L. Green, 36, of Chagrin Falls, Ohio.
Well worth the full read.
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Should we presume that the seed for the LAT story was from scanning the local rags and coming across your previous? I suspect so. Done good, Beau. This is something nobody should ever get used to.
Comment by Mozzbi — February 25, 2008 @ 18:18
No, Sharon brought in the dead tree version: It’s in the official obituary notices, which means it was sent in by a family member. I believe that the LAT, as have some other papers, has made a commitment to not let any military personnel die in Iraq or Afghanistan without writing a story about it.
Comment by Beau — February 25, 2008 @ 21:15