Word: ben
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...didn't talk long," said Gary. "Ben said he wanted to let his men use the phone while they had one. That's who Ben was: generous, kind, always looking out for others...
...Ben Sklaver grew up drawn to service. He admired his grandfather, who served with George Patton's Army in World War II. He joined ROTC at Tufts, received a master's in international relations from the Fletcher School of Diplomacy, was commissioned as an officer in the Army Reserve in 2003 and became convinced that a world consumed with conflict and terrorism might be changed by Americans bringing clean water, medicine and food as much as by drones, missiles and military might. (See pictures of the U.S. Marines' new offensive in Afghanistan...
...dangerous and divided world, Ben's principal weapon was idealism. In Uganda, he helped bring the simplest of things - clean drinking water and a bit of hope - to thousands who often saw sunrise as just one more dawn in a country where death can seem as common as drawing a breath. After his tour in Uganda ended, he came home seeking other ways to help those most in need...
...Ben had just started a new job with FEMA in New York when his unit was recalled," Gary Sklaver said. "They were supposed to go to Iraq, but then the strategy changed along with his orders, and they were sent to Afghanistan...
...Ben died, four other Americans were also killed in the nearly medieval land that has exposed the folly of empires for centuries. At the final moment of his young and accomplished life - when he stood talking to a village leader in Murcheh - he wore the colors of a country nobly represented by an all-volunteer Army; he fought on behalf of a dangerously self-absorbed people back home and the politicians who represent them, many of whom are unable to see beyond the next election...