Sgt. Matt Maupin's Remains Found In Iraq

After four long years, Keith "Matt" Maupin is coming home.

Staff Sgt. Matt Maupin's mother said President Bush called her tonight to extend his condolences after the Army identified the missing soldier's remains in Iraq.

Bush has met several times with the Maupins during the past four years and pledged to them that everything would be done to find out what had happened to their son after he was captured by insurgents on April 9, 2004.

Carolyn Maupin took the President's call on a cell phone at 9:45 p.m. behind the Yellow Ribbon Support Center in Batavia. Maupin's parents were notified earlier Sunday when a three-star general visited them and gave them the news, they said.

I cannot imagine. His parents must have felt simultaneous feelings of agony and relief.

"Matt is coming home. He's completed his mission," his father, Keith Maupin, said.

Wow. Now you know why Matt was a quality human being: he got it from his parents.

Maupin was a 20-year-old specialist when he was captured on April 9, 2004, after his fuel convoy was ambushed west of Baghdad. He had been driving a supply truck.

Arab television network Al-Jazeera aired a videotape a week later showing Maupin sitting on the floor surrounded by five masked men holding automatic rifles.

That June, Al-Jazeera aired another tape purporting to show a U.S. soldier being shot. But the dark and grainy tape showed only the back of the victim's head and not the actual shooting. (H/T - Little Green Footballs)

If there is any good news in this story it is this: America will not leave their heroes behind, because the people that raised them to become the heroes they are deserve no less.