Warrior’s words echo

Letter from fallen Marine spoke of protecting children.

KABUL, Afghanistan — U.S. Marine Sgt. William Stacey was killed this year by a homemade bomb in southern Afghanistan. He had prepared for that possibility by writing a letter to his family explaining why he was fighting, which was to be read in the event of his death.

The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Marine Gen. John Allen, read the 23-year-old’s letter Monday during a Memorial Day service.

“Today we remember his life and his words, for they speak resoundingly and timelessly for our fallen brothers and sisters in arms,” the general said.

Stacey was on his fourth deployment to Afghanistan when he was killed Jan. 31 in Helmand province.

The Marine from Redding, Calif., told his family he was motivated to fight to protect Afghanistan’s children and give them the opportunity to go to school and live out their dreams.

“There will be a child who will live because men left the security they enjoyed in their home to come to his,” Stacey wrote.

“He will have the gift of freedom which I have enjoyed for so long myself, and if my life brings the safety of a child who will one day change the world, then I know that it was all worth it.”

At least 1,851 members of the U.S. military have died in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, according to the Associated Press count.

Allen said that since he took command in Afghan- istan in July 2011, at least 251 American troops, 76 other NATO coalition members and 1,296 members of the Afghan security forces have been killed in the country.

During Monday’s ceremony at NATO coalition headquarters, Allen helped lay a large wreath at the base of a pedestal holding a battlefield cross: the traditional memorial to a fallen soldier, constructed using the troop’s boots, rifle, helmet and dog tags. Allen stepped back and crisply saluted as Taps played over a speaker.

Support for the Afghan war has waned in the U.S. and other countries as casualties have mounted and progress has seemed elusive.

Despite the human cost of the war, Allen said the soldiers who have fallen did not die in vain.

“While our brothers and sisters fell in a place far from home, far from their families, the values for which they stood and for which they lived and for which they died occupy an enduring place in our hearts,” he said.

“Those values: freedom, duty, selflessness and sacrifice.”

AP Gen. John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, observes Memorial Day by reading a letter written by a U.S. Marine to his family before he died.