Dead soldier's parting gift: $100,000 party

[ECH1969]

Shortly after Jeffrey "Toz" Toczylowski's last mission in Iraq a year ago this month, friends received a message.

"If you are getting this e-mail, it means that I have passed away," the missive said. "No, it's not a sick Toz joke, but a letter I wanted to write in case this happened."

The message, distributed by a fellow Green Beret after Toczylowski's family had been notified of his death, added: "There will also be a party in Vegas with a 100k to help pay for travel, room and a party." snip.

"Jeff was the kind of person who lived every day as if it would be his last," Pam said. And he would want them to make his farewell bash "a party that when people leave, they will talk about it forever."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003436814_greenberet18.html

[AIJ Alom]

1. Damn it kid, I wish you could have attended your own party.

Rest in Peace.

[xchrom]

2. party hard in honour of your friend.

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Poll_Blind]

4. Almost kind of touching. Until I read the whole article. Yuck.

No snarkiness meant against you for posting it- wanted to clarify that. I had a totally different impression of this guy from the snippet but on reading the whole article all those images just feel apart and an impression of something almost completely shallow and worthless replaced them.

PB

[Starlight]

5. I'm not sure why this was posted, but it sounds like the guy was a right wing jerk.

from the letter he wrote, quoted in the article:

"Don't ever think that you are defending me by slamming the Global War on Terrorism or the U.S. goals in that war," Jeffrey Toczylowski wrote. "As far as I am concerned, we can send guys like me to go after them or we can wait for them to come back to us again. I died doing something I believed in and have no regrets except that I couldn't do more."

[ECH1969]

6. Interesting how a number of people focus only on fact his position on war

and not the main point of the story itself.

What his position on the war was when he was alive is irrelevent just like Pat Tillman's position on the war or any other dead soldier's poition on the war.

[Miss Chybil]

11. He had a right to believe he was doing something worthwhile.

Better than to think he was to sit and wait to die for nothing. Whether his beliefs were correct, or not, he thought he was protecting us. I think that's pretty honorable.

[Aviation Pro]

7. Hold on everyone.....

...the ability of our SOCOM forces to deliver surgical strikes is part of the overall strategy that we must adopt to reduce the threat of terrorism. Other parts include:

* Good investigative police work to gather intelligence such as what the Brits did before the Little Monkey administration mucked up the works.

* A complete defunding of the Wahhabist schools that promote a perverse aberration of the Koran.

* The development of alternative fuel sources that will deprive the corrupt oil states of the necessary capital to influence the world.

* In the case of the worst of the radicals and as course of absolute last resort, the said surgical strikes that are precise, terrible and swift and only authorized after developing compelling and incontrivertible evidence. The soldiers who carry these missions out are found in our Special Forces (Army), SEALS (Navy), Rangers (Army), and Force Recon (Marines).

Captain Toczylowski's reasons and his motivation were his own, but he was part of that team.

[madrchsod]

10. i agree with what you say

i have no problem with what these guys do , i have a problem with the leaders who lie to put them there.

[demnan]

8. I'd like to see some confirmation

as to whether this guy's words as linked here were his or someone elses.

[stillcool]

9. Jeeze...are these responses from humanoids?..

One snippet of a comment and a dead soldier is dismissed as a "kool-aid drinking, right-wing freak?" That's just sick. A war zone is not the best environment to read and keep up to date on emerging facts...and why should he be criticized for what he believes, regardless of what it is? Trauma lends itself to believing whatever gets you through the night. why do I bother...Where'd all the good people go>

[LeighAnn]

12. Does every parent get a Power-Point presentation?

This seem 'spicious to me.

A few weeks after her son's Nov. 14 burial at Arlington, a team of Special Forces soldiers arrived at her home and gave an hourlong PowerPoint presentation on the details.

It took them an hour-long presentation to tell them their kid fell out of a helicopter? Does every family get this courtesy?

[truedelphi]

13. Probably not everyone gets this tretment

The man was Special Forces

Over the last year or so, family of fallen soldiers are getting a slightly better deal - and grief counseling is now available *immediately* if need be for the kids and spouses.

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. This is just bizarre

At 9 p.m., six Green Berets swarmed an unsuspecting colleague on the suite's attached basketball court. A few feet from where one chef carved rare prime rib and a sushi chef sliced young yellowtail and spicy tuna rolls, the men wrestled their thrashing comrade onto an 8-foot stepladder, secured him from chin to shoes with a few hundred feet of duct tape, covered him with whipped cream and strategically placed cherries, spray-painted his hair red, poured whiskey down his throat and then hoisted the ladder into a vertical position and stuck a microphone to his face.

[psychopomp]

15. Suicide ruled out?

He stepped out of a helicopter moving at 100 mph 100 feet off of the ground...the Army says he was "disoriented" by the night flight over the desert and had thought the chopper had touched down.

[FormerOstrich]

16. How could you not know.....

Flying over the desert at night is disorienting. Toz apparently believed the helicopter had touched down. He stepped out. It was more than 100 feet off the ground and thundering ahead at 100 mph.

Even if flying over the desert is disorienting how could you not know that you were moving at 100 mph? I find that very difficult to believe. I would think it more likely he decided to step out, knowing full well, or he accidently fell out. I've only been in a helicopter once. Anyone ever been in one and became that disoriented?

[krispos42]

17. With so much rotor wash, he might not have realized it

I've never been in a helicopter, though. My boss at work has, though. Vietnam. I'll ask him tomorrow if I remember.