An Army carry team moves a transfer case containing the remains of Pvt. Danny Chen Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2011 at Dover Air Force Base, Del. According to the Department of Defense, Chen, 19, of New York, died Oct. 3, 2011 in Kandahar province, Afghanistan. (Photo: Steve Ruark / AP)
It was a month ago that Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., revealed the hazing that her nephew, Marine Lance Corporal Harry Lew, endured in Afghanistan the April night he took his own life.
Now comes word of an eerily similar case:
Army Private Danny Chen
Like Lew, Army Private Danny Chen died in Afghanistan, on October 3, six months after Lew.
Like Lew, Chen had been taunted by his comrades.
Like Lew, there was evidence Chen had been physically assaulted by his comrades.
Like Lew, Chen was of Chinese heritage.
Like Lew’s associates, Chen’s are concerned his race may have played a role in the abuse.
Unlike Lew, Chen grew up in New York City, not California.
And there was another difference: Lew died in a foxhole; Chen apparently killed himself in his barracks (an Army investigation continues).
Chen’s funeral is set for Thursday at the Wah Wing Sang Funeral home on Mulberry Street, Chinatown, less than three miles from the Statue of Liberty:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest tossed,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.