I'm glad the United States is bringing America's sons and daughters, our troops, home from Iraq before Christmas.
My son Bryan died in Iraq, in a town named Albu Hyatt, north of Bagdad, Sept. 6, 2007.
He and 3 others died, but 40 to 50 troops behind them lived.
A suicide bomber gunned a newer model truck, loaded with explosives, at them from a checkpoint less than one block in front of them.
I reenacted this event with my truck, and found Bryan had one and half seconds to react in this quick ambush.
The West Point graduate who designed this roadblock got a bronze star and then a job with a private contractor.
And I got Bryan's Purple Heart for his service.
The Iraq war has only affected a few families personally, unless you count higher fuel prices and a larger national debt.
The ones closer to the war have had their lives changed forever.
Just like mine, and Bryan's friends, who put the fire out while others in America were attending football games.
Looking forward to Christmas I think of past years, when we would play cards until late in the evening. Sometimes laughing until our eyes watered.
This upcoming Christmas, I thought about putting Bryan's Purple Heart medal at his chair and deal out the cards. But I know it will not be the same,
It all began with him pledging allegiance to the flag and starting each sporting event with the Star Spangled Banner.
America was someone he trusted to always tell the truth.
He trusted our leaders as he trusted teachers and coaches to be on the right side of humanity.
Never did he think the people behind our flag would lie to him, burn his remains and throw his ashes into a landfill.
He was awarded a purple heart, but no answers to the Iraq war.
George Bush shrugged his shoulders and said "faulty intelligence, next question please." Later I heard him say he wishes he had better intelligence at the time.
So, if George Bush wishes this, why not tell us who was responsible for this faulty intelligence, because each source would lead to a person's name.
I know it's awkward for our Justice Department to investigate the ones who appointed them, so this would relieve that pressure.
And heaven forbid, we don't want to make this mistake again.
Maybe I should be happy with a Purple Heart medal here at Christmas, knowing we are free of Iraqi drones overhead. And not look at our rulers behind our flag.
But it's hard not to when you lose a son.
Stephanie Schriock: Women and the Road Home From Iraq
Jeffrey Small: The Origins of Christmas
A Vietnam Vet.
I am sure that your son died doing his best to protect his comrades, and doing his assigned duty in very difficult circumstances. I would suggest that his comrades and the designers of the checkpoint would also have done their best in difficult circumstances to protect your son and return him to you. As you say, the responsibility for your loss, and the loss of over a hundred thousand other lives in this near-decade-long misadventure lies much further up the chain of command.
Whatever bad info anyone gave them, it wasn't as much the intelligence being faulty as the intelligence being cherry-picked for information to support a desired war. They wanted a war and they found an excuse.
There's another guilty party. The majority of Americans who were wildly enthusiastic about the invasion of a foreign country that had not attacked us and posed no real threat. Why should the WH hold back when they saw that they would rally the people behind them. War presidents don't lose elections when the people believe in the cause.
We need to teach civics and ethics in school, as we once did when most Americans believed in the importance of national honor and citizens' rights.
We're all complicit. One thing I'm sure of about Iraq:
If the people who threatened those who spoke against the war had to go to Iraq and enter battle - or if their children did - there would have been no war. And if we had a draftee army, there would have been no war.
We only went and then stayed there 9 years because we were sacrificing other people's children in our beloved lost cause.
Something you mentioned is very important, it is something that is often overlooked and almost never talked about, that is: "not making the same mistake again." And I worry about this because by not holding anyone accountable for the devious actions that took us into Iraq in the first place, we have left the door open for another would-be warrior to impose their will on the world as our commander-in-chief. I can only imagine what someone like Gingrich (described by another conservative as a "human hand grenade") would do if given the same executive exemption from accountability that George Bush and Dick Cheney have enjoyed.