[Dragaera] comments on a fallen Dragon

[Philip Hart]

Last week a man I knew a little through the web was killed in Iraq.
Andrew Olmstead was a major in the army reserves and a prolific
blogger.  He was a big Babylon 5 fan, but I guess he wouldn't have
minded being called a Dragon.  He had the sense of duty and honor
of a Dragon, and the quick temper, and the searching intelligence
of a fine officer.  From a report about his death:

'"They were pursuing some insurgents," Casey's brother, Jeffrey, said. 
"Major Olmsted got out of his vehicle and was pleading with these three 
individuals to stop and surrender so that the team would not have to fire 
upon them and kill them."

"Unfortunately, there were snipers in the area, and apparently that's when 
Major Olmsted was hit," Jeffrey Casey added. "He didn't want to kill these 
individuals. He was trying to save their lives."

After the gunfire erupted, Thomas Casey went to help Olmsted, thinking 
that the three suspected insurgents were responsible for the shooting, his 
brother said.

"That's when he took his bullet," Jeffrey Casey said. "The fact that a 
sniper round caught him in the neck . . . that's just one of those fluke 
one-in-a-million shots."'


I happened to reread _Dragon_ a few weeks ago, and I can't get the line 
about soldiers wanting to stop the slaughter out of my head.

His beautiful final post can be read here:
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/01/andy-olmsted.html

In it he asks that his death not be politicized, and I ask that it not be 
here.  I thought it appropriate to note Andrew's passing in the context of 
_Dragon_, which I will never read the same way again.