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| Home Front Economy |
| Family loses home after losing son |
| 2006-02-02 |
| A suburban family is homeless after a candle that was part of a shrine to a soldier killed in Iraq started a house fire. It's the latest in a string of bad fortune for the family. You will forgive 57-year-old Jesse Alcozer if he is not exactly in the holiday spirit. The Elmhurst man, wounded seven times in Vietnam lost his job in 2004, then last year, his VA benefits were cut 20 percent. It got worse, in November his 21-year-old son Christopher was killed after his army unit was attacked in Mosul, Iraq. At Christopher's funeral, protesters carried a sign that read "thank god for dead soldiers." then two days after Christmas, a candle lit as a shrine to Christopher, sparked a fire that tore through their house. So on Monday, with the Alcozer's boarded up home as a backdrop, lieutenant governor Pat Quinn urged the community to come to the aid of this now homeless family. Setting up a fund to defray their mounting expenses. If there is any positive news here at all, it's that when firefighters were battling the blaze, they managed to retrieve the flag that draped Christopher's coffin, and a collection of his military medals. In addition the lieutenant governor is now sponsoring legislation that would prohibit protests within 300 feet of a military or civilian funeral, and would ban such protests 30 minutes before and after the service. That would ensure that other families would not have to endure the insult to fatal injury like the Alcozer's did." For more information about how you can help the Alcozer family visit: www.operationhomefront.org |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #4 Eric - "barf" would be more fitting than "cry" over those worthless losers. Who will spend all of eternity (which can't begin soon enough for them) IN HELL. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2006-02-02 23:26 |
| #3 Probably “Rev.” Fred Phelps and his crazies. Look him up on Wikipedia and cry. |
| Posted by: Eric Jablow 2006-02-02 17:38 |
| #2 I feel very sorry for that family. How dare those protestors carry on that way at a funeral. it's despicable. |
| Posted by: anon1 2006-02-02 12:01 |
| #1 Huh? Did the son have a family already or were the parents the NOK? If the parents were the NOK why didn't they get the SGLI? Something doesn't make sense here. The family has the medals which I would have thought the wife or NOK would have gotten. If a wife doesn't have them, then the parents appear to be the NOK. SGLI was 250K at the beginning of the war and iirc Congress got around to upping it to 400K. So what gives? |
| Posted by: Ebbereth Glolet5536 2006-02-02 10:36 |