Yesterday, after almost three years of being at war, President Bush finally came up with a plan for victory in Iraq.
Today, we learn of ten American marines who will never see whether that plan gets put into action. For them, three years of waiting was three years too long. They were killed by Iraqi insurgents who exploded a bomb under them. That makes for a total of 2,125 American soldiers killed in Iraq so far, and tens of thousands more gravely wounded.
In another depressing number, we learn that two nations from Bush’s small “coalition of the willing” are not impressed by Bush’s new ideas for how to achieve “complete victory” in Iraq. Ukraine and Bulgaria have announced that they’re going home, taking their soldiers out of the meat grinder that Iraq has become. Six other members of the coalition are also currently considering drastically reducing or completely withdrawing their soldiers.
So, as Bush keeps weaving and bobbing his way toward a vision of “complete victory”, the ranks of those who will follow him are dwindling, even as the numbers of the dead that he has dragged along with him on his latter day crusade are growing into a formidable army of shadows.
Of course, the numbers of the dead or the living are not themselves what matters. A worthy ideal can overcome the most terrible of numbers. The problem with this war is that it is lacking in any worthy ideal. Even if the ten marines killed today were the only deaths for the entire adventure, the war would remain a sham.
Luckily for us, my son is now in hospital in Germany, will be home after the first of the year. Daughter-in-law called to ask if we could continue with the grandchildren, she had a chance for temporary duty where he’s at, so they can be together. My wife talked to her, after the conversation, wife had one of those boy is some one going to get a well deserved “it” in the neck. We knew he’d gotten a bad hit that was stopped by the ballistic vest we sent him. and we knew he had been injured by fragments of some kind which required stitches. He is a field medic with marines. Well, he was hurt worse than he let on, it got infected, and he hid it out so he could stay and take care of his people, but it caught up with him. He could have been home some time ago, but he felt needed, and while his wife understands this, she is a woman and wife before she is an officer (VERY mixed marriage, she is black and an officer, he is white and enlisted)and she has a few words to lay on him when next they meet. She says she’ll cry and kiss the hell out of him, and then…it don’t bear thinking of. If someone says he deserves what he’s going to get, well, I don’t say “no”, but I’m glad I’m not in his shoes.
I’m told that he risked himself for civilians and others because he felt their lives have value. He did his job without going armed, even though he got yelled at for not doing so. Proved to some folks that he wasn’t afraid of a fight just because he didn’t like violence.
I’m glad he’s coming home alive, Sarge. And I’m deeply sorry that we as a nation failed to send him on a mission that was justified.
It’s hard for me to know what to say to our soldiers and their families. I met a woman in my hometown at a vigil a few months back. Her son did a full tour of duty in Iraq, packed his bags and got ready to go home. There was a big welcome-back party planned for him in May of 2004. He came back June 2004 in a flag-draped coffin. They brought him back on “stop loss” while he was waiting to fly home from Kuwait, and he died fighting in Najaf, after we antagonized Al Sadr into attacking U.S. forces by shutting down his newspaper. Turns out now that we were planting propaganda in the Iraqi press all along.
America failed that man so many times, in so many ways. I was, and remain, sad and ashamed. And all I could say was, “I’m sorry.”