Robert Augustine Seidel III

West Point, 2004

Be Thou At Peace

Posted by Martha Ellen on January 31, 2008:

Watertown Daily Times Family sets up fund for injured soldiers OFFICER WITH 10TH: Seidel killed in Iraq; NNY man reaches out Date: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 Section: St. Lawrence Edition: Both Page: B1 By MARTHA ELLEN TIMES STAFF WRITER Memo: WANT TO GIVE? * To make a contribution to the 1LT Rob Seidel Wounded Soldiers Fund, make checks payable to: Community Foundation of Frederick County, 312 E. Church St., Frederick, Md. 21701. Write in the fund's name in the check's memo line. All contributions are tax-deductible. ON THE NET * Guitar drawing that benefits Lt. Seidel's fund: www.oursacrifice.net/Guitar.html. Illustration: Color photo by Scott Schild Watertown Daily Times The parents of a 10th Mountain Division officer killed in Iraq in 2006 have established a national fund in his name to help others injured in the war."We just want to make sure the wounded and their families get the benefits," said Robert A. Seidel Jr., Gettysburg, Pa., father of 1st Lt. Robert A. Seidel III. "It's obviously for a good cause. Robby would be proud." In the north country, Gouverneur optometrist Robert N. Saidel has been so touched by Lt. Seidel's death and the similarity of their names that he has kept up a correspondence with the family and contributed to the cause. The 1LT Rob Seidel Wounded Soldiers Fund will support charities that provide direct services to military veterans of recent conflicts. They may include medical treatment, housing assistance, various therapies, employment training, mentoring or anything else that may be beneficial. Mr. Seidel and his wife, Sandra, wanted to help in a way that would honor their son's memory and echo his commitment to the troops and his country. Lt. Seidel, Gettysburg, two other soldiers and their Iraqi interpreter were killed May 18, 2006, by a roadside bomb while in their Humvee northwest of Baghdad. Lt. Seidel, a West Point graduate who grew up in Emmitsburg, Md., was a rifle platoon leader with the 2nd Battalion, 22nd Infantry of the 10th Mountain Division. In the Iraqi desert, Lt. Seidel wrote a poem: Now cloaked under the darkness of a soft desert sky, I feel a strange likeness between my father and I. For now I'm a father to thirty young men, Related only through the blood that we've shed. And they look up to me to lead them through the fight, For we know not what awaits us this cold desert night. But I've vowed to protect them and bring them all home, So may I find strength in the courage they've shown. And like my father I ask the Lord as I pray, Watch over my boys if today is my day. "That pretty much sums it up," Mr. Seidel said of his son. "He thought the world of his troops." Organizers have collected about $15,000 so far and are focusing on helping soldiers recuperating at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C., and their families. In Gouverneur, Mr. Saidel read about Lt. Seidel's death in the newspaper and was struck by how close the name was to his own. He has cousins who spell their surname Seidel, but the young man who was killed didn't turn out to be a relative. Mr. Saidel lost his son, Ryan B., to cancer in 2004, so he thought he might be able to help the family cope with its grief. He wrote a condolence letter and offered to add Lt. Seidel's name to a memorial garden he has created along the curb in front of his Main Street house. The memorial includes marble slabs for those being honored, masses of flowers in the summer and two ceramic eagles facing each other. Mr. Saidel's son's name is there, as is that of Jason H. Jantzi, a Gouverneur high school student who died of cancer in 2006, and Sgt. David Travis Friedrich, Macomb, an Army reservist who was killed in a mortar attack in 2003 on a U.S. base on the outskirts of Baghdad. Mr. Saidel still corresponds with Mr. and Mrs. Seidel and Lt. Seidel's grandfather. They have contributed to Ryan's Team, which benefits the Edward I. Moses Walk/Run for Life, and Mr. Saidel has given to Lt. Seidel's fund. Among the e-mails Mr. Saidel received was a link to a chance for a national celebrity-signed guitar raffle to benefit six military-related charities, among them Lt. Seidel's wounded soldiers fund. Mr. Saidel made a donation and was surprised last month to receive a guitar signed by country singer Alan Jackson. "It's amazing how our paths cross," Mr. Saidel said

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