Franklin soldier is slain in Iraq

Robert Pirelli was a Green Beret. (WCVB TV 5 NEWS)

Franklin soldier is slain in Iraq
By Ryan Haggerty and Megan Tench, Globe Staff | August 17, 2007

FRANKLIN -- News of Staff Sergeant Robert Pirelli's death in Iraq spread quickly through town yesterday, touching Franklin officials who never knew the 29-yearold Green Beret.

"It's a terrible tragedy," said Jeffrey D. Nutting, Franklin's town administrator, as he and other town employees answered calls from residents about Pirelli's death, including one from a local church member asking whether it was proper to lower the church's US flag to half-staff in the soldier's honor. Nutting said it was.

"You never think it's going to hit home" Nutting said. "You see it on TV and in the papers, but it's always somebody else."

This time it was Pirelli, a member of the Army's special forces who was due home in October, according to family members. The military did not release details of his death.

~snip~

Staff Sergeant Alicia A. Birchett, 29, of Mashpee died in Iraq on Aug. 9 when a truck's brakes failed while she was changing a tire, her family said yesterday.

~snip~

While serving five tours of duty, Birchett married and had three children, boys ages 7, 4, and 2, said her aunt, Laverne Jackson. Birchett's husband, Joe Louis Birchett, whom she met while in the military, raised the boys while their mother was fulfilling her life's mission.

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their lives are finished, all for a lie!!

:grr:

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