2nd Infantry Division

Re "Veterans Revisit a Nation Worthy of Their Fight" (July 26), on the gratitude expressed to Americans by elderly South Koreans for our sacrifices in the Korean War and the indifference we met in the United States on our return: In November 1980, I parachuted into South Korea as a member of an Army Reserve Special Forces team. On the ground, a South Korean home guardsman noticed the 2nd Infantry Division patch on the right shoulder of my field jacket. He asked me if I had served during the war. When I told him I had, he said a few words to other Koreans grouped around a small fire that had marked our drop zone.

The call would soon become agonizingly familiar: A 28-year-old Army specialist from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, recently home from Afghanistan, had walked into a parking garage in Salt Lake City with a full set of body armor, ammunition clips and his AR-15 rifle. Five weeks before the 2010 incident, Spc. Brandon Barrett had gone absent without leave after a drunk driving arrest near the sprawling military base in Washington state and had begun sending ominous messages to friends. "About to show the world they shouldn't [mess]

The Defense Department last week identified the following American military personnel killed in Afghanistan and Iraq: Adriana Alvarez, 20, of San Benito, Texas; private first class, Army. Alvarez died Wednesday in Baghdad of injuries sustained while supporting combat operations. She was assigned to the 504th Military Police Battalion, 42nd Military Police Brigade at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash. Adam J. Ray, 23, of Louisville, Ky.; sergeant, Army. Ray died Tuesday in southern Afghanistan of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.

Their Stryker, hulking in the dark like a dinosaur, is prepped with coolers full of water and Gatorade. The iPod is wired into the communications system. Now all they can do is wait for the ride their commanders have named "the last patrol. " It's just past midnight Monday at Camp Taji on the northern boundary of Baghdad. Staff Sgt. Shawn Sedillo chats with his gunner, Spc. Ben Longoria, and driver, Spc. Joseph LeFevre, who are smoking outside the motor pool. Sedillo's deputy, Sgt. Dennis Hill, naps inside their armored vehicle's box-like interior, grateful to get away from his hyper buddies.

As a former member of the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion who has fought in two wars, Korea (1951-1952) and Vietnam (1966-1967 and 1969-1970), I found the article quite interesting. I volunteered to serve as a combat infantryman in both wars because I had been taught to serve my country "right or wrong." I also knew that as a black infantryman I would be assigned to the 24th Infantry Regiment of the 25th Infantry Division or the 3rd Battalion of the 9th Infantry Regiment of the 2nd Infantry Division in Korea.

Sitting helplessly in the back of a bombed armored troop carrier as soldiers scrambled to tend the wounded, the diplomat had to ask himself: Was his meeting with Iraqi officials worth this? It is a question that instructors at the Army's National Training Center at Fort Irwin, in the Mojave Desert, hope diplomats always ask themselves before requesting transportation from the military units that house and protect them in many parts of Iraq.

First Lt. Ehren Watada "brought shame upon himself, his unit and the U.S. Army," a military prosecutor said Tuesday at a court-martial for the Honolulu soldier, whose refusal to ship out to Iraq has made him a hero to some and a coward to others.

The Defense Department last week identified the following American military personnel killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, or who died at a U.S. military hospital of their injuries: Marc A. Arizmendez, 30, of Anaheim; staff sergeant, Army. Arizmendez was among three soldiers killed Tuesday when their vehicle was attacked with an improvised explosive device in Qalat, Afghanistan, southwest of Kabul. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment in Hohenfels, Germany. Christopher F. Cabacoy, 30, of Virginia Beach, Va.; staff sergeant, Army.

Brian Turner served seven years in the U.S. Army. One of them was as an infantry team leader in Iraq with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division. That experience left an indelible impression on Turner and resulted in his book, "Here, Bullet," from which these poems are drawn. His new book of poetry, "Phantom Noise," is to be published in April from Alice James Books. What Every Soldier Should Know "To yield to force is an act of necessity, not of will; It is at best an act of prudence."