Sgt. Arnold Duplantier II, Requiescat in pace.

From thunder6's blog 365 and a Wakeup comes the story of another American hero you better not forget.

June 26, 2005

Godspeed

Tonight our battalion huddled together under a boiling wind and said goodbye to Arnold Duplantier II, a team leader in Charlie “Rock” Company. SGT Duplantier was a man that effortlessly earned the respect of his commanders and his soldiers. A tireless soldier, a faithful friend, a caring leader, a loving husband, and a proud father.
After the national anthem and invocation the Battalion Commander, LTC Tomahawk, came forward and offered a final memorial:
Let us turn our thoughts today to Arnold Duplantier. Sergeant of Infantry. And recognize that there are bonds between us, and all God’s soldiers fighting in this ancient land. Ties of hope and love, brotherhood and blood. And we are bound together in a desire to see the world become a place in which our children can grow free and proud. We are bound together by the tests that stand behind us and the road that lies ahead. We are bound. And we are bound. The essential elements of nature are earth, water, wind and fire. I saw in Dupe these elements so balanced and perfectly blended that I could find no fault in that sweet, brave and honorable man. These fundamental forces so combined in him as to make the world stand on end and say “Behold, there walks a soldier”. Chief among the elements of nature is earth. And the soul of the earth is rock., survivor of the cosmic explosion that shaped all things. The rock endures. The waters break upon it but cannot drown it. Fire can rage about it but cannot consume it. The wind encompasses it, it howls about it in its fury but cannot move it. A rifle company is a beautiful thing, and if ever there was an example of such a thing it is Charlie Rock. Like unto the rock of ages it stands silent, strong, wonderful and proud. How fitting, how perfectly acceptable that Dupe would find his home in Charlie Company. Adding his strength to theirs. Strength on strength. Bearing the fair burden of combat. Like the rock bearing the next storm, the next fire, the next flood. My heart is full, my mind at ease. For I walk with the rock. They inspire me, they provide me my constancy and purpose. Dupe was the human incarnation of all the goodness of Charlie Rock. What remains for a family of men bereft of a brother like that. Only the will. The will to persevere. To endure. To strive and never to yield. Like the granite mountains that form the backbone of our cherished homeland. Nothing in nature is created. Nor is it destroyed. It mysteriously recombines… and presents itself again to existence as earth, wind, water and fire.
The Battalion Commander was followed by SGT Duplantier’s chain of command, each offering their own memories of our fallen hero. By time they finished the assembly was a sea of subtle motion as calloused hands wiped away bitter tears. And then the ceremony was over, and the Nightstalkers waited in a long, silent line to offer one last salute to a fallen friend.
It breaks my heart to think of SGT Duplantier’s family - I know that the sorrow we feel is a drop compared to the yawning ocean of loss they must feel. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.


June 23, 2005

The Day the Laughter Died

“No man is an island, entire of itself. Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee”
- John Donne

I first met SGT Arnold Duplantier II a few years back, in a sandy desert hundreds of miles south of here. At the time our company was tasked with securing the Patriot missile batteries sprinkled across the Kuwaiti desert, each platoon assigned to an individual battery. Every so often I would get the chance to visit the other platoons, and it was on one of these random visits that I first bumped into a young soldier with a smile as broad as a barn door. I was stopped at the entry control point for a vehicle inspection, and while my vehicle was being inspected SGT Duplantier rattled off a joke that left my sides aching. That was what I remember most about SGT Duplantier – that wide, easy grin and infectious sense of humor.
This time around I didn’t see much of SGT Duplantier. Every so often I’d see him laughing and joking in the DFAC with his troops, but that was it.
I won’t ever see have the chance to hear SGT Duplantier tell another joke because yesterday a sniper took his life. That lone bullet didn’t just kill a good man – it wounded and scarred every man lucky enough to know him.