June 17, 2007

ID Cards of 2 Missing Soldiers Found

No sign of the missing soldiers themselves yet, but now their ID cards have been recovered, about 90 miles from where they were kidnapped last month.

Via CNN:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S.-led coalition forces have found the identification cards of two missing American soldiers, believed to have been abducted last month south of Baghdad, the U.S. military said Saturday.

"Coalition forces raided a suspected al Qaeda in Iraq safe house near Samarra on June 9 and discovered the identification cards" of Spc. Alex R. Jimenez of Lawrence, Massachusetts, and Pvt. Byron W. Fouty, of Waterford, Michigan, a military news release said.

The cards were recovered 90 miles (about 144 kilometers) north of where the two men disappeared, a few days after an Islamic militant group issued a video showing what appeared to be military ID cards.

The Islamic State of Iraq also announced the deaths of the two soldiers in commentary on the video, but provided no proof.

The families of the two soldiers continue to hold out hope that they are still alive:

Maria del Rosario Duran keeps holding fast to hope. Even as military officials announced yesterday that her kidnapped soldier son's identification cards were found in an al-Qaida safe house north of Baghdad, the mother in Corona, Queens, believes he is alive.

"We're waiting, we're waiting. I think this is good news. Maybe they moved him to somewhere," Duran said yesterday of her son, Spc. Alex Jimenez, 25, as a tear formed in her eye. She added: "If I continue to hope and hope and hope, then in my mind he's alive."

And another heartbreaking excerpt:

Like Jimenez’ parents, Fouty’s stepfather found hope in the latest news.

“I take it as they keep moving him, and that he’s alive,” Gordon Dibler Jr. said. “I was happy that they found something tangible. I’m going to keep hoping.”

[snip]

Andy Jimenez returned to Lawrence last week and to his job as a contractor after keeping vigil with Duran and other family in New York since the news first broke. Yesterday afternoon, Jimenez was helping repair a friend’s lawn mower.

“We just keep hope with him,” his close friend and neighbor Wendy Luzon said. “We wait for that little bit of news. Like Andy wants, the only thing we can do is to keep praying.”

But nothing can keep either of them from thinking of Alex.

Andy Jimenez ends every telephone conversation with friends and family members in tears. He wakes up in the middle of the night with his son on his mind. One day last week, he sat down to eat beef steak, white rice and beans and thought of him.

“Because he likes to eat a lot,” he said.

Meanwhile, Duran said she will continue praying as she has done since her son enlisted.

“We’ll continue to have the same faith in God so he can give us strength,” she said. “I feel like I’m on the road to Calvary.”

Continued, constant prayers for the two soldiers and their families. If the two young men are, in fact dead, then they are in a better place and no longer suffering as their families are. As long as the families continue to hold out hope, we owe it to them to bombard the gates of Heaven with prayers on their behalf. Prayers also for the safety of the troops working on the search-and-rescue mission.