By Jeffrey Page

 Eddie Ryan – Sergeant, U.S.M.C. – wasn’t wounded in Iraq by enemy gunfire or a roadside bomb but by that oxymoronic monster – friendly fire. He suffered terrible head wounds. It was during his second tour of duty in the Middle East. And now, the Marines want to kick him out.

 Six years after he was wounded, Sgt. Ryan is still relearning how to do things most of us take for granted, such as walking.

 But after giving so much to the nation, Sgt. Ryan, 25, of Ellenville, recently received a letter from the Department of the Navy informing him that he was being mustered out. In the words of some dithering half-wit in the Navy Department, he was told he’s out because he had been found “incompetent” and “unemployable.” This to a man who has been in and out of hospitals for six years, about one quarter of his life.

 Sgt. Ryan says he still has something to offer. “I’m working hard every day. I’m working on my legs,” he told The Times Herald-Record last month. “My Marines need me. I want to serve.”

 Maybe Sgt. Ryan isn’t ready to carry a rifle right now. But “incompetent” for suffering wounds accidentally inflicted by his comrades? Absolutely not. This man’s courage, pluck, and determination could inspire other wounded soldiers. He’s just a wounded Marine who needs more time to recover.

 No rational person can describe Sgt. Eddie Ryan as incompetent, and for some Navy desk jockey to address him that way in the chill of an official letter is obscene. But since the Navy Department is tossing an incendiary word like “incompetent” in the direction of Ellenville, it behooves Americans to consider the competence – or serious lack thereof – of some of the people in our wartime government over the last decade.

 Competence? There were the hucksters in the Bush administration who sold America a bill of goods about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. You remember, the chemical, biological and nuclear weapons they knew Hussein possessed even if none was ever found.

 How about all the Bushies who were never able to answer this uncomplicated question: If Hussein had such weapons, why didn’t he use them against foreign troops landing on his soil?

 What about then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld assuring President Bush that the war wouldn’t cost a dime because Iraq’s oil reserves would pay for it?

 Recall Rumsfeld’s response to a soldier in Kuwait who asked why the troops had to dig through landfills for scrap metal to fashion into armor for their vehicles. Rumsfeld’s hapless response: “As you know, ah, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”

 And how about Dick Cheney assuring the nation that the end of the war was near at hand? Of America’s adversaries he said: “I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.” That was May 30, 2005.

 Competence? There’s the Einstein at the Government Printing Office who recently placed a report on non-military nuclear facilities in the United States on the internet. This catalogue contained handy little maps to show precisely where weapons-grade nuclear material is kept. This sounds like delicious information for a terrorist, but one former head of the CIA said: “These screw-ups happen.” There’ve been others?

 There’s the case of  Vice President Joe Biden – first in the line of presidential succession – revealing that Dick Cheney’s “secure location” after the attacks of 9/11 was in the basement of the Naval Observatory. Cheney’s hideout was always good for a laugh, but the observatory is the official residence of the VP – making it Biden’s new home and his own “secure location” in case of danger.

 As you know, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – second in the line of presidential succession – may now be working on her 37th revision of her charge that the CIA lied to her about the use of torture. Or is it the 47th? One of these days she’s bound to come up with her final version.

 These are some of the people who’ve demonstrated their levels of competence. Not much, right? Yet with the exception of Rumsfeld, they served out their time in the Bush administration and are getting off to a rousing start in President Obama’s administration. And all the while, Sgt. Eddie Ryan, U.S.M.C., gets booted out of the Corps and remains in Ellenville working hard to get back to his men.

 Jeffrey can be reached at jeffrey@zestoforange.com.

By Jeffrey Page

By rights, the boy should have had a big chocolate cake and some candles to blow out. He should have gotten a shiny new bike, maybe a Whiffle ball set.

Some ancient uncle should have asked the usual goofy questions like “Are you looking forward to going to school?” because, had things been different, he would have been entering kindergarten in September.

That cake and party should have been held last month, five years after the child was born and five years after he was murdered.

With no name, no family and no history, he floated ashore in Middletown, N.J. on one of those brutal March days when the wind comes off Raritan Bay like a punishment. He was found by a man out for a walk at a place called Ideal Beach. The boy was naked. His umbilical cord was still attached even after about a week in the water.

There had been no reports of missing newborns.

A post mortem would reveal two skull fractures that could have been caused by his striking something in the water or, more likely, by some lunatic burdened with this inconvenient infant. An assistant prosecutor in Monmouth County said it was likely that the baby had been tossed into the bay alive.

The discovery of this boy came during an epidemic of infanticide in New Jersey. In 1997, a young woman gave birth at her prom, drowned the baby in the toilet, stopped for some salad at the snack table and went back to the dance. In 2000, a woman threw her 15-month old son into the Passaic River because she couldn’t find a babysitter. In 2005, a man beat his year-old son to death because the boy had played with the TV remote. And of course in 1996 the infamous young couple from Bergen County, Amy Grossberg and Brian Peterson, went to prison in Delaware for killing the infant son she had just borne in a motel. There were others.

Each of the states, starting with Texas in 1999, has enacted a Safe Haven law that, with some variation in details, allow people to surrender unwanted infants at hospitals, fire houses and police stations. No questions asked unless the baby shows signs of physical abuse. Nebraska’s law was badly written, with no age requirements, and as a result some people dropped off their teenage sons and daughters – clearly not the idea behind Safe Haven. That law has been fixed.

Critics object to Safe Haven laws because they think it encourages parents to give up their children.

But in fact every legal surrender results in one infant not being left out in the cold, or being put out in the garbage, or getting dropped into the fearful waters of Raritan Bay. If anything, the law needs greater public awareness.

Tim Jaccard, the founder of the Long Island-based AMT Children of Hope Foundation and an outspoken supporter of Safe Haven laws, said that 220 babies have been legally abandoned in New York since 2000. During the same period 22 babies were improperly surrendered: Only eight of them were found alive. He estimated that 1,826 children have been legally surrendered nationwide since 1999.

In New Jersey, the Department of Children and Families reports that in the last eight years, 38 Safe Haven surrenders had been made. Of course, no one can say what would have happened to those children if there were no such law. But what really matters is that 38 kids are alive today. In the same span, another 28 children in New Jersey were involved in “unsafe surrenders,” which is sterilized bureaucratese for babies found dead or critically injured.

Some months after the little boy washed up at Ideal Beach, a funeral was held for him at St. Anne’s Cemetery in Wall Township. Attending were a gravedigger, a man from a funeral home, a priest, a reporter and a photographer. The cemetery donated a gravesite in a section reserved for babies and children. The undertaker provided a tiny casket and some white carnations and purple delphiniums.

The priest decided that the baby would be called John. Then, as the gravedigger lay down on the ground to lower the little casket into the earth, the priest prayed.

He prayed that John had deserved the dignity due all people; surely he knew John deserved such respect. He implored God to bless the grave and to take John into his presence. He referred to John as “our child” and asked God to grant John eternal happiness.

Now, five years later, John’s killer remains free.

Jeff can be reached at jeffrey@zestoforange.com