Here's another one of your "fun facts" - a 17 year old boy slaughtered outside of his own home, his mother, who is serving in Iraq, was flown home for his funeral:

Army mother comes home to tragedy
By Paloma Esquivel, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer, March 9, 2008

The soldier serving in Iraq worried about many things, but her son's being killed on the streets of L.A. wasn't one of them.

Army Sgt. Anita Shaw spent endless hours worrying about her teenage son while she served in Iraq.

She worried about his learning to drive without her, then maybe having a car accident. She worried about his not seeing a doctor if he needed to, or forgetting to go to the dentist. She worried about his having trouble in school.

But even in her darkest moments, she never worried about him being slain.

Her son, Jamiel Shaw Jr., 17, was killed last Sunday when two men in a car pulled up next to him, asked if he belonged to a gang, then shot him when he didn't answer. He was three houses from home in the Mid-City area of Los Angeles

Sign Up

Police said Jamiel was not affiliated with a gang. He was a high school football star who hoped to earn a college scholarship and become a sports agent, family members said.

Shaw learned of her son's death when her commander called her into his office to break the news.