Funerals of 2nd Lieutenant (post mortem) Ionel Gheorghita Dragusanu, lost in mission in Afghanistan, occurred today, June 24, 2006 in Basarabi, Constanta County.

In the religious ceremony participated, together with the mourning family, the minister of National Defense, Teodor Atanasiu, the Chief of General Staff, General Eugen Badalan, comrades and friends, representatives of central and local authorities and many people.

He loved the Army and he wished to be part of it for ever; he worked and fought as well as he could under the colors on which it is inscribed Honor and Homeland stated Teodor Atanasiu in his message, this occasion. Atanasiu also added he is sharing the grief of the family and ensured them the Romanian armed forces will never forget the people who made the supreme sacrifice for the country.

I wish I could shake hands with Ionel Gheorghita Dragusanu and said thank you for the faultless missions fulfilled in a such difficult theater of operation … but, unfortunately, it was not mend, God had other plans and called him to Him said at his turn General Badalan. It is a heavy lost for the other family he had, the Romanian Armed Forces, which he represented with honor in the confrontation with the terrorist perfidiousness added the Chief of the Romanian General Staff.

A commemorative plate in the memory of the hero, 2nd Lieutenant (post mortem) Ionel Dragusanu was uncovered at the Monument of the Heroes in Basarabi. He was escorted on his last way with military honors to the graveyard in Basarabi.

MoND Press Office