Based: Schweinfurt, Germany
1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division
Supporting: Operation Iraqi Freedom
Died: February 20, 2007
Ramadi, Iraq
Single
Gender: Male
Hometown: Hacienda Heights
High School: Los Altos High (Hacienda Heights)
Burial: Los Angeles National Cemetery, Westwood
The 19-year-old Hacienda Heights man was killed by small-arms fire Feb. 20 as he crawled between buildings during a gun battle in Ramadi, Iraq, west of Baghdad.Read the entire LA Times article about Army Specialist Louis G. Kim here and find more at Iraq Page and at Stripes and visit Specialist Kim's Guest Book.
The military had beckoned to Kim from a young age. When he and [his friend] Manalo jogged to their Irvine grade school to avoid being late, Kim would tell Manalo to pretend that they were training for the Navy SEALs.
When Kim moved to Chicago for a couple of years during high school, he drove to Oklahoma with a group of friends to reenact D-day during a weeklong paintball tournament on the plains. And he loved the graphically realistic World War II movie "Saving Private Ryan."
Kim enlisted as soon as he graduated from Los Altos High School in Hacienda Heights in 2005, and was sent to Iraq last summer from Germany.
He did well in marksmanship and hoped to become an Army Ranger. But he never took himself too seriously.
"He was always the big class clown," Manalo said.
Kim's mother, Bridget Shin, didn't want her son to enlist.
"What parent would want that when there is a war going on?" she said. "But he was insistent."
She said today would have been his 20th birthday.
"He was a good boy," she added, her voice cracking. "He never went to play pool or stay out late or not come home."
2 comments:
He was a good boy....he never went to play pool or stay out late or not come home....
She must have been a good mother.
I don't believe in the luck of the draw. I believe God has a plan. I just don't understand it.
And I'm not required to understand it. God's God, I'm not. But sometimes it's hard. Actually, every day is hard.
I hope He gives points for dumb blind faith.
I agree with "anonymous"
God has a plan, we just do not understand.
A PRAYER:
I saw a soldier kneeling down,
for this was the first quiet place he had found.
He had traveled through jungles, rivers and mud.
His hands were scared and toil-warned.
He folded his hands and looked to the sky...
I saw his tears, as they welled in his eyes.
He spoke to God, and this is what he said.
God Bless my men, who now lie dead;
I know not what You have in mind,
but when You judge, please be kind....
when they come before You, they will be poorly dressed
but will walk proudly, for they have done their best.
Their boots will be muddy and their clothes all torn...
but these clothes they have so proudly worn.
Their hearts will be still and cold inside,
for they have fought their best and did so with pride.
So please take care of them as they pass Your way...
the price of freedom they've already paid.
AMEN!
God Bless our fallen Hero from Hacienda Heights (& Los Altos, my alma mater too)
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