Hitchens and a soldier

On the 15th of January last, he was on patrol and noticed that the Humvee
in front of him was not properly "up-armored" against I.E.D.'s. He insisted on
changing places and taking a lead position in his own Humvee, and was shortly
afterward hit by an enormous buried mine that packed a charge of some 1,500
pounds of high explosive. Yes, that's right. He, and the three other American
soldiers and Iraqi interpreter who perished with him, went to war with the army
we had. It's some consolation to John and Linda Daily, and to Mark's brother and
two sisters, and to his widow (who had been married to him for just 18 months)
to know that he couldn't have felt anything.