[North-NV-Greens] Fwd: Families Pay the Price

[Paul Etxeberri]

>
>
>New York Times
>December 24, 2004
>
>Families Pay the Price
>
>By Bob Herbert
>
>"It's like watching your son playing in traffic, and
>there's nothing you can do." - Janet Bellows, mother of
>a soldier who has been assigned to a second tour in
>Iraq.
>
>Back in the 1960's, when it seemed as if every other
>draftee in the Army was being sent to Vietnam, I was
>sent off to Korea, where I was assigned to the
>intelligence office of an engineer battalion.
>
>Twenty years old and half a world away from home, I
>looked forward to mail call the way junkies craved
>their next fix. My teenage sister, Sandy, got all of
>her high school girlfriends to write to me, which led
>some of the guys in my unit to think I was some kind of
>Don Juan. I considered it impolite to correct any
>misconceptions they might have had.
>
>You could depend on the mail for an emotional lift -
>most of the time. But there were times when I would
>open an envelope and read, in the inky handwriting of
>my mother or father or sister, that a friend of mine,
>someone I had grown up with or gone to school with, or
>a new friend I had met in the Army, had been killed in
>Vietnam. Just like that. Gone. Life over at 18, 19, 20.
>
>I can still remember the weird feelings that would come
>over me in those surreal moments, including the
>irrational idea that I was somehow responsible for the
>death. In the twisted logic of grief, I would feel that
>if I had never opened the envelope, the person would
>still be alive. I remember being overwhelmed with the
>desire to reseal the letter in the envelope and bring
>my dead friend back to life.
>
>This week's hideous attack in Mosul reminded me of
>those long ago days. Once again American troops sent on
>a fool's errand are coming home in coffins, or without
>their right arms or left legs, or paralyzed, or so
>messed up mentally they'll never be the same. Troops
>are being shoved two or three times into the furnace of
>Iraq by astonishingly incompetent leaders who have been
>unable or unwilling to provide them with the proper
>training, adequate equipment or even a clearly defined
>mission.
>
>It is a mind-boggling tragedy. And the suffering goes
>far beyond the men and women targeted by the
>insurgents. Each death in Iraq blows a hole in a family
>and sets off concentric circles of grief that touch
>everyone else who knew and cared for the fallen
>soldier. If the human stakes were understood well
>enough by the political leaders of this country, it
>might make them a little more reluctant to launch
>foolish, unnecessary and ultimately unwinnable wars.
>
>Lisa Hoffman and Annette Rainville of the Scripps
>Howard News Service have reported, in an extremely
>moving article, that nearly 900 American children have
>lost a parent to the war in Iraq. More than 40 fathers
>died without seeing their babies.
>
>The article begins with a description of a deeply sad
>4-year-old named Jack Shanaberger, whose father was
>killed in an ambush in March. Jack told his mother he
>didn't want to be a father when he grew up. "I don't
>want to be a daddy," he said, "because daddies die."
>
>Six female soldiers who died in the war left a total of
>10 children. This is a new form of wartime heartbreak
>for the U.S.
>
>We have completely lost our way with this fiasco in
>Iraq. The president seems almost perversely out of
>touch. "The idea of democracy taking hold in what was a
>place of tyranny and hatred and destruction is such a
>hopeful moment in the history of the world," he said
>this week.
>
>The truth, of course, is that we can't even secure the
>road to the Baghdad airport, or protect our own troops
>lining up for lunch inside a military compound. The
>coming elections are a slapstick version of democracy.
>International observers won't even go to Iraq to
>monitor the elections because it's too dangerous.
>They'll be watching, as if through binoculars, from
>Jordan.
>
>Nobody has a plan. We don't have enough troops to
>secure the country, and the Iraqi forces have shown
>neither the strength nor the will to do it themselves.
>Election officials are being murdered in the streets.
>The insurgency is growing in both strength and
>sophistication. At least three more marines and one
>soldier were killed yesterday, ensuring the grimmest of
>holidays for their families and loved ones.
>
>One of the things that President Bush might consider
>while on his current vacation is whether there are any
>limits to the price our troops should be prepared to
>pay for his misadventure in Iraq, or whether the
>suffering and dying will simply go on indefinitely.
>
>E-mail: bobherb at nytimes.com
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/24/opinion/24herbert.html?oref=login
>
>Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
>_______________________________________________________
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-- 
Paul Etxeberri

"Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow"   ---Chateaubriand