Pool Report on McCain's Conversation With Teacher Whose Son Died in Iraq

MERIDIAN, Mississippi –
McCain spent the 20-minute ride from Hope Village to the Meridian Airport talking on back of the Straight Talk Express with Rachel Lee, a fourth grade teacher whose son Dustin Lee, a 20-year old Marine based out of Albany Georgia, was killed by an IED last year in al-Anbar province while attached to a reconnaissance unit.

After Lee's death, the military allowed his family to adopt Lex, an explosive-detecting dog that trained with Dustin's unit and was with him in the battle the day he died. The dog was wounded and later given an honorary Purple Heart, according to a spokeswoman for the McCain campaign. [Campaign may have additional details about the battle]

During the ride, Lex stretched across the faux red velvet couch on the back of the bus, resting against Rachel Lee's thigh, as she told McCain and his wife Cindy the story of her son's service and his death. Her two children, her 16-year-old daughter Madyson and 13-year-old Camryn, sat silently on the other side of Lex on the couch, petting his fur.

“I just want you to know that I'm very honored, not because you're running for president but because you are a veteran, and everything that you've been through,” Lee told McCain, her voice breaking. “My family is military all the way down too, and our mission now in Dustin's honor is to visit soldiers at the hospitals, visit veterans, because I think that's what we can given back.”

“He's a wounded soldier also,” Rachel Lee said, gesturing to Lex, “and I think it does well for other soldiers to see him.”
McCain, who held a card with pictures of Dustin, his family and his gravesite, gently asked Lee a series of questions about her son, who was raised in Stonewall, Mississippi and just two months shy of his 21st birthday when he was killed.

“It was an I.E.D.?” McCain asked.

“Yes sir, it hit the building that he had just come out,” Lee said, adding that because of Dustin's injuries, she believes he turned to fall or run when he was struck.

“I gather that from what the Sgt. Major had described—whenever IEDs are shot you don't hear them until it's too late,” she said. As she told the story, Cindy McCain's eyes filled with tears, and she cried silently throughout the rest of the ride.

“We have a son in the Marines too,” McCain said, but then quickly turned back to questions about Dustin, noting that he does not speak about his son in front of reporters. Several aides said that was off the record.

Lee told McCain Dustin surprised her by joining the Marines even before he graduated from high school. The last time she spoke to her son, he was “very upbeat” and excited because he was coming home in six weeks, she said. He had already started planning a career in law enforcement, possibly specializing as a K-9 instructor.

“He had grown tremendously from the time that he left… it's amazing the way he talked,” Rachel Lee said. “He had already started planning his life.”

“I hope you know how much we appreciate it,” McCain said softly. “We're without words to describe how much we appreciate it. I think we are winning the war--we've had a problem here in the last few days, but hopefully the Anbar province will stay quiet….thanks to the Marines and Army.”

McCain read the date of Dustin's death, 21 March 2007, aloud from the card and noted the date was around the time the troop surge began—when military personnel “started going into some of these places they hadn't been in in a long time,” he said.

Since her son's death, if she sees soldiers at the mall “I just feel like they're part of me. And I know you guys understand,” Lee said as Cindy nodded.

After Dustin's death, “We were going through so many different emotions that we really didn't know how to react,” she said. Her daughter, Madyson needed to go back to school – “that's the way she dealt with it” – while Camryn spent much of his time riding his motorcycle.

“Once we got Lex, everybody started to heal,” Rachel Lee said, rubbing Lex's ears. “Because we can look in Lex's eyes and see his [Dustin's] spirit – because I know how much he loved this dog.”