JAG CENTRAL

From the Los Angeles Times, an update on SGT Hasan Akbar's death penalty phase. Today, the final prosecution witnesses testified. The first, the mother of murder victim MAJ Greg Stone, testified about the heartache his son's murder caused:

"He was my life," she said of her son, who suffered 83 grenade wounds. "Now my life is gone.

"I never got a chance to see him in his casket," she said, recalling his burial at Arlington National Cemetery. "I look up instead and hope someday he will come home. I know he won't. But I hope he does.

"He was the heart of our family. He was our hero," she added. "That grenade tore him away from us."

MAJ Stone's father expressed similar heartache:

"You go through the grieving process and get on with life," he said. "But with Greg, there is not a day goes by I don't think about him. There's a broken link."

Similar laments from MAJ Stone's fiancee:

"I was angry. Livid," she said. "Greg had worked his whole life to defend our country. When 9/11 happened he was already in his uniform before I even got home.

"He fought to go to Iraq. That's what he wanted to do before he retired. And I was so angry that he was right there, just about to realize his dream, and it was taken from him. He never got to go into country, and he was so close."

The other murder victim, CPT Christopher Seifert, was represented in court by his mother and widow. His mother testified:

"I just could not believe that an American soldier could do this," she said. "....It was betrayal."

She said her son was buried near their home in Pennsylvania.

"At his grave, there's one of us there every day. In the summertime, people say it looks like a garden, because it's one of the things we can do for our son. When you lose a child, it's the hardest thing."

She said she has had a difficult time keeping her job and her husband has suffered a tumor — all after their son's death.

"I still look for the phone to ring because he always called, no matter where he was in the world," she said.

CPT Seifert's widow, Terri:

His widow, Terri Seifert, said their son Benjamin, now 2, refers to his father as his "first friend." Their home is filled with photos and other mementoes of him. She said she was still proud to call herself an Army wife, even though Akbar wears the uniform.

"A sacred trust was broken that night. That night that band of brothers was broken," she said. "And I am terribly lonely. I have a wonderful family and lots of friends, but I never knew you could be in a room filled with people and still feel alone."

Defense witnesses appear tomorrow.