We buried a great American on Friday. Marine Staff Sergeant Raymond Plouhar was killed by a roadside in Anbar province on June 26th,  while on his second tour to Iraq. He left behind his wife, Leigha and two sons Raymond and Michael.  He also left them and us a legacy that few men can hope to match.  It is a pity that there are those on the far left of this country who saw Plouhar as an unwilling instrument to spew their anti military screed.

SSG Plouhar was the Marine recruiter featured in Michael Moore's deplorable 'documentary' Fahrenheit 9/11. According to SSG Plouhar's father Michael Moore used him to demonstrate how recruiters cynically target disadvantaged youths and trick them into joining the Marines and going into combat, while they stay safe in their offices.  Moore neglected to mention that this remarkable Marine was on recruiting duty only because he had recently donated a kidney to his uncle and required reassignment away from a combat unit until he fully recovered

Plouhar's father went on to say,

'he had been misled and believed he was being filmed for a documentary that would appear on the Discovery Channel. (Moore's office didn't return calls or e—mail messages seeking comment.)

 

He cried when he found out what it really was," his father says. "He never dreamed that  it was going to be something to slam the country, which he dearly  loved."

 

Michael Moore piously claims he wants to stop the war in Iraq out of a deep concern for the welfare of the soldiers.  Yet does he comment or pay any tribute to the extraordinary man that he callously used for his own perfidy?  There is not a single word about Plouhar on Moore's web site, which he uses to painstakingly document every casualty in order to lay them at the feet of the President.  Not a single word!  It is perhaps too much to hope that Moore possesses a sense of guilt conscience and that the knowledge that he is unfit to stand in SSG Plouhar's shadow has made him to ashamed to write.  If only Moore and his ilk were capable of feeling that kind of shame.

SSG Plouhar was a man of action, not rhetoric.  Before he gave his life in the service of his country he offered hope and a brighter future to the young men and women he recruited into the Marines.  Moreover, he literally gave renewed life to his uncle.  But, most importantly, he devoted himself to the promise of a better world to the people of Iraq.  His life provides the rest of us with a shining example of the difference one man can make in the world.

What has Michael Moore and his breed ever sacrificed to help anyone?

Sharon Tosi Moore   7 10 06