IDEAS, NOT BLOODLINES (via No Left Turns):

Family cheers as 'their Marine' leads statue's destruction (Rose Arce and Dana Garrett, 4/09/03, CNN)

Cheers erupted Wednesday morning as a Brooklyn family watching television recognized their son and brother as the Marine who played a lead role in toppling a statue of Saddam Hussein in a central square in Baghdad.

The image of Cpl. Edward Chin, 23, of the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines Regiment, was broadcast on TV screens around the world as U.S. troops joined a crowd that was attacking the statue.

In central Baghdad's Firdos Square, Chin climbed the outstretched arm of an M88 Tank Recovery Vehicle to fasten a cable around the statue's neck, and while he was there, briefly covered its face with an American flag.

After the M88 pulled the statue down, the crowd placed a pre-Gulf War Iraqi flag on the statue's base.

Iraqis broke the statue into pieces and dragged its head through the streets, while others -- including children -- pounded it with shoes, an act considered a supreme insult in the Arab world.

"I [am] so, so proud, so very proud," said an emotional Nai Koon Chin, the Marine's mother. "He used to play like GI Joe as a little boy. He always dreamed he would be a Marine."

An immigrant from Burma, she said the family left the country seeking "American freedom" in 1980, and she gave birth to Edward a week later.

"We like our children have a good life, good schools. We want American freedom. Now Edward bring American freedom, " she said.

From oppressed to liberator in one generation, an American Tale. Posted by Orrin Judd at April 14, 2003 4:50 PM