From Facebook to tabloids to TV news, the media is abuzz with updates on Charlie Sheen’s high-profile meltdown. But while Sheen earns airtime for his antics, one Facebook user argues, fallen soldiers and their sacrifices go unsung.
A recent status update posted by an unknown Facebook user offers this sober reminder:
“Charlie Sheen is all over the news because he’s a celebrity drug addict, while Andrew Wilfahrt 31, Brian Tabada 21, Rudolph Hizon 22, Chauncy Mays 25, are soldiers who gave their lives this week with no media mention. Please honor them by posting this as your status for a little while.”
The post, re-printed by CNN and various other online news outlets, went viral within a matter of hours. Its popularity and somber message inspired CNN blogger Wayne Drash to find out more about the soldiers named in the post – one of whom, he soon discovered, was openly gay
Cpl. Andrew Wilfahrt’s father, Jeff Wilfahrt, approved of the Facebook post and agreed to speak with Drash about his son
“He was a gay soldier,” Wilfahrt stated. As a single gay man without a wife or children, Wilfahrt was inspired to serve in part “so that somebody with a young family wouldn’t die.”
Cpl. Wilfahrt was among the first gay soldiers to die in combat since the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in December of 2010.
Read more about Wilfahrt and his fallen comrades on the CNN World blog.
