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Two Soldiers Who Wrote NYT Op-Ed Die in Iraq
Last month, seven 82nd Airborne soldiers in Iraq wrote a harsh and powerful assessment of the war. The historic piece ran as an op-ed in The New York Times, stating in part:
To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched.
Today, it was announced that two of those soldiers have died in a vehicle accident in Baghdad.
I was gutted when I heard the news this morning. Like so many other Iraq veterans, I read the paper every day and go directly to names of the dead -- fearfully looking for names I know. Our staff reviews and posts the names of those killed in action every day on the "Honor the Fallen" section of IAVA's homepage, and not one of them is easy. But this news was especially tough for me to swallow. I really looked forward to one day meeting these brave, articulate and thoughtful soldier-statesmen -- or seeing them run for office.
Please keep these soldiers and their families in your thoughts and prayers. Like every troop that dies in Iraq, these men are more than just numbers. They each have a name, a story and a family that must be remembered. Amidst all the politics and partisanship that dominate our televisions and radios, we must always keep in mind that there are real people behind the policy.
Sgt. Omar Mora, 28, of Texas City, TX, the son of Olga and Robert Capetillo, and the sister of Erica Capetillo, was on his second tour of duty and had just become a U.S. citizen. He is survived by a wife and 5-year-old daughter.
Staff Sgt. Yance T. Gray, 26, of Ismay, MT, the son of Richard and Karen Gray, leaves behind a wife and baby daughter.
Please consider making a donation in their memory to the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund. As soldiers and as citizens, these young men are heroes. Their devotion to our country is an inspiration, and their deaths represent an unspeakable loss.
Follow Paul Rieckhoff on Twitter: www.twitter.com/PaulRieckhoff
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All of the future life scenarios for these two have been ended - a wife and a child without a husband and a father - for their lifetime. No future siblings. No father at confirmations, PTA meetings, Christmas programs, sport events, high school graduation, and weddings. No Grandpa cuddling the grandkids. Somehow, the fact that these were volunteers lends an excuse and protection for the decision makers. The volunteers have chosen their lot. They were not conscripts. It is somehow OK, somehow justified. The decision makers now talk of the 70's Vietnam withdrawal as a mistake......
THE ONLY QUESTION IS :
......" WERE THEY KILLED OR MURDERED "........
...."WILL THE OTHER FOUR COME HOME ALIVE "......
." WE ALL KNOW WHAT BUSH DOSE WITH PEOPLE WHO".
.................." DISAGREE "................
America is not a zero-sum game, because each day more people are born, or come of age, who will add honor, integrity, and greatness to the Common Wealth of our nation.
Yet, there are times when we must spend values.
But, when we wastefully spend a value, it both diminishes the value and lowers the supply of it.
It is merciful that our soldiers can focus on their job each day. These troops go into death-risk situations daily, but do not think of death, they focus on doing their job.
Imagine how much courage it takes to risk death each day.
Forget the reckless waste of the hundreds of billions of dollars. They are as nothing. Nothing.
The mortal sin of this nation is that the abomination in Iraq squanders a magnificent valor each and every day a soldier falls.
You cannot manufacture valor. You cannot buy valor. For it is precious, and can only be created within the heart of a person.
America is much less, each time one of the troops dies.
Forgive us not. For we know not what we squander.
If you talk to people who have loved ones in Iraq they will tell you that it's common knowledge that if you or someone in your family dares to speak out against the war you will be sent on a dangerous mission from which you will probably not return.
Thank you Paul, you are a great leader and I hope to see you running for office soon.
The fact that you have to have a charity for these soldiers makes me ill. The government OWES their families... they are not charity cases.
And then there is the apparently heartfelt 'tribute' to Staff Sgt. Yance T. Gray by "one former conservative state Senator in Sgt. Gray’s home state of Montana, Dave Rye":
http://www.intelligentdiscontent.com/montana/attacking-the-dead-conservative-support-for-the-t.html
It really takes a special sort of person to piss on the dead the way Mr Rye does in his 'opinion' piece.
I read the piece you mentioned in your post. How typical of the repukes. Not having enough money to afford college by no means indicates a lack of intelligence. I dropped out of school 45 years ago for lack of money. Not having an education drove home the point to me that education was uppermost when my girls were born and to prepare them for this eventuality, I read to them, took them everywhere I could afford to, and did my level best to develop a love of learning in them.
Both of my daughters had reading ability, vocabulary, and spelling skills that kept them in the top 3% of their classes. For some repukeliscum hack to impugn the mental ability of one of our enlisted men is further proof of just how filthy the r. party really is.
I feel sad, not only because these two brave men were articulate enough to make me understand the horror they had been through and knew firstfand, but also at the senselessness of their sacrifice.
After reading "Fiasco," I can't help feeling that every American patriot should have read it as required reading.
We as Americans are so naive in our understanding of war and this war in particular.
Paul, you write a mean blog from your heart. Since you aren't going to see these soldiers, you can consider continuing your fight a sacred duty. You have the talent to write a proper eulogy for these fallen soldiers. Such a eulogy can contribute to ending this war. You now are quite aware of what the supporters of this war will do to silence those who oppose this war by the most vile, cruel & brutal means available. The fight will not get easier. All of us must expect the worst from the wars supporters-even after the war ends. You are in for the long haul which will test your strength & courage constantly for the long term future. Some who support you are veterans of the long haul by the roughest route who abandoned the easy low road long ago. They passed the point of no return. You have gone far beyond the point of no return now. Good luck, courage & strength.
But it was a small price to pay *Boehner*
Just when I think that nothing can be any worse than it is, I read that something else has happened to continue the nightmare of Bush and his administration. I have never been so scared, frustrated and angry as I am right now.How can this continue?
My father grew up in the Ismay Mt. area back in the day when the railroads were strong and the community was larger than today. It is a family farming area far from any kind of what would be called city life. The people there work hard, hold their children close and are just as patriotic as anyone else. The thing is they respect life and love their children well and grow them to know the difference between what is right and wrong. The Gray family should be very proud of their son,husband and father, a patriot for sure and a voice, although silenced can never truly be forgotten. He did what he felt was the right thing and his country and fellow Montanas are in their debt. So much promise.... and so it goes, another day begins in the middle east......the madness is allowed to continue!!
My heart goes out to those soldiers whose lifespan was cut short in the course of their courageous stint in service to their country. Their sacrifices will not be in vain as these were men of courage who lend their voices to a course that has been sacrifised on the alter of silence and fear. When others chose to remain silent to protect their careers, these men raised their voices to debunk the myth about the Iraq situation that had been perpetrated by the Brookings "scholars" in the name of political expediency and opportunistic pandering to the right. Now America's sons and daughters are paying with their blood for a mission whose disguised objectives can only be viewed in the context of selfish advancement of personal ambitions and interests. Although these men wrote an article in the NY.Times based on their first hand, protracted and ongoing experience, their account was given no publicity by neither the so-called mainstream media, progressive movement nor the Democrats. They sat there sheepishly, passively and indifferently as the O'Hanlon-Pollack maliciously-delusional report was blown out of proportion by the formidable propaganda machine of the conservative movement. These right-wing propagandists masquerading as objective and dispassionate fact-finders almost single-handely turned the tide in favor a mythical rationale perpetrated by the White House and the G.O.P. that the troop surge should be allowed to continue because it's working. If the surge were working it would be a good thing for Iraq. It would be a good thing for the U.S. But clearly the surge is not working, yet increasingly---because of the unconstrained right-wing propaganda---most Americans will be inclined to believe it is. This should'nt even be a Republican or Democratic issue. But because the White House under the prescription of Karl Rove politicised this issue to gain an upper hand and it worked in the politics of fear that reigned across the country, and in a similar case fearmongering is being peddled by the John McCains of this world.
HOW CONVENIENT......THESE TWO BRAVE AMERICAN SIED IN A "VEHICLE ACCIDENT"?? I DOUBT THAT VERY MUCH....SOMEONE WANTED THEM "SHUT UP".. IT'S GETTING TO BE LIKE A DICTATORSHIP IN THE MILITARY AND OUR GOVERNMENT. WE CAN "NEVER" KNOW THE ENTIRE TRUTH ABOUT HOW OUR LOVED ONES DIED......TOO MANY "FRIENDLY FIRE" FOR ONE THING.......WE SEND THEM IN TO "CLEAN OUT" AN AREA AND WHEN THEY LEAVE THE "MISERABLE MONSTER TERRORISTS" COME RIGHT BACK IN...lIVES LOST FOR WHAT....SOME GD POLITICIANS AMBITIONS...ESPECIALLY BASTARD BUSH
Two truthtellers down.
The soldiers who wrote the piece in the New York Times were risking their careers and perhaps even their lives to speak truth to the American people while many of us who marched and spoke in the early days of the war gave up when it became apparent that marches, opinion polls, and even the overthrow of the Republican Congressional majority made no difference to the continuation of this war.
But it is time for all of us who know the truth to recommit, stand together, and bring this war to an end. Now it is time for every American who recognizes that this war began with a violation of international law and continues at the whim of a president who never came across a lie too big to tell to the American people to stand up for the truth and say -- BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW.
This is what bothers me...if our military personnel now know as we at home know that we and they were lied to and the United States invaded Iraq under false pretenses, why do they stay and fight? Are they so brainwashed that they kill and maim without reason? What is the difference between them and those in the German army whose excuse at the Nuremburg trials was "I was just following orders..."
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