Dying Veteran's Last Letter to Bush and Cheney

[DeadFidel]

Leave it for later if you are in a good mood.


https://youtube.com/watch?v=_jHAtLPPI5g&list=UU1yBKRuGpC1tSM73A0ZjYjQ& index=10

this link looks?

[theking]

Originally Posted by DeadFidel

Leave it for later if you are in a good mood.


https://youtube.com/watch?v=_jHAtLPPI5g&list=UU1yBKRuGpC1tSM73A0ZjYjQ& index=10

this link looks?

I salute a fallen comrade for his service to his government/country...but in the end it is but one man's opinion about an event.

[DeadFidel]

Originally Posted by theking

I salute a fallen comrade for his service to his government/country...but in the end it is but one man's opinion about an event.

An event?

[J. Falcon]

Originally Posted by theking

I salute a fallen comrade for his service to his government/country...but in the end it is but one man's opinion about an event.

Fucking shoot yourself already.

[AsianDivaGirlsWebDude]

Complete letter of Tomas Young:

Tomas Young joined the Army two days after September 11, 2001 and was shot and paralyzed after serving only five days in Iraq in 2004. He was the subject of the powerful 2007 documentary Body of War ? with a soundtrack that included Pearl Jam, Rage Against the Machine and Bruce Springsteen ? and since then, his health has worsened and he is currently under hospice care.

On the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, Young wrote a personal, heartbreaking letter to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. It was originally posted on Truthdig.com; Young has given us permission to reprint it here.

The Last Letter

To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
From: Tomas Young

I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries.

I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some one million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all ? the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

9/11: A Pivot Upon Which We View Our Future

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans ? my fellow veterans ? whose future you stole.

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit.

Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States.

I did not join the Army to "liberate" Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called "democracy" in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq's oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes.

The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level ? moral, strategic, military and economic ? Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love.

I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.

I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn't lying a sin? Isn't murder a sin? Aren't theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.

My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.

ADG

[2MuchMark]

Originally Posted by theking

I salute a fallen comrade for his service to his government/country...but in the end it is but one man's opinion about an event.

Opinion? Event? Holy cow... this "event" cost thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousans of Iraqi lives, and it was built on lies. Sadam had nothing to do with 9/11. He was not any kind of friend to Al Qaeda. There were no weapons of mass destruction. And this is hardly 1 mans opinion. It's fact.

[Dirty F]

Originally Posted by J. Falcon

Fucking shoot yourself already.

He would return with a new nick.

[Scott McD]

When you join up you commit yourself to be sent wherever your government tells you to.

That's the reality...Whether you approve or not.

[Vapid - BANNED FOR LIFE]

Originally Posted by Scott McD

your government

Quiet Brit.

[2012]

Originally Posted by theking

I salute a fallen comrade for his service to his government/country...but in the end it is but one man's opinion about an event.

[theking]

Originally Posted by J. Falcon

Fucking shoot yourself already.

The thought has entered my mind every single day since I was injured during the first Gulf War.

[bushwacker]

Originally Posted by theking

the thought has entered my mind every single day since i was injured during the first gulf war.

pigshit!

[theking]

Originally Posted by **********

Opinion? Event? Holy cow... this "event" cost thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousans of Iraqi lives, and it was built on lies. Sadam had nothing to do with 9/11. He was not any kind of friend to Al Qaeda. There were no weapons of mass destruction. And this is hardly 1 mans opinion. It's fact.

Yes...opinion. He has offered up his opinion based upon his thoughts...experience and has made certain conclusions from said thoughts and experience. There are some that have served that have similar thinking but they are not the majority of those that have served. And no the bulk of his thinking and conclusions are not "fact". At best he was/is naive.

While I can empathize and sympathize with my fallen comrade in arms I do not agree with his opinion/opinions and or conclusions.

I have served in Grenada...Panama...Desert Shield...and Desert Storm. I was injured during Desert Storm and was Medically Discharged in '92. I have suffered severe mind numbing pain...24/7...every day since that time and think about ending it every day that I live. I was not naive when I enlisted...as I come from a long line oi military ancestors...and was fully aware of what the consequences of the oath I took could mean.

[anexsia]

Originally Posted by **********

Opinion? Event? Holy cow... this "event" cost thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousans of Iraqi lives, and it was built on lies. Sadam had nothing to do with 9/11. He was not any kind of friend to Al Qaeda. There were no weapons of mass destruction. And this is hardly 1 mans opinion. It's fact.

I have many friends that are veterans of this war and my father is a Vietnam veteran....all of them are still proud to have served their country. My father didn't fully agree with Vietnam and there's a few of my friends that didn't fully agree with this war either BUT they still served and would do it all over again if they had to.

[Bryan G]

Originally Posted by theking

The thought has entered my mind every single day since I was injured during the first Gulf War.

But yet you still support the bush family. Pull your head out your ass.

[notinmybackyard]

I was part of the 1968 Paris riots.
I spent time with Emmet Grogan and his wife. Even visted them in the Haight.
I was detained and almost arrested for my political affiliations in the early 1970s.

In the end nothing has changed since the 1960s except that people today are a lot more stupid.

Best of luck to the veteran and I hope the thousands of dead or suffering innocent Iraqis find justice and not vengeance.

[theking]

Originally Posted by Bryan G

But yet you still support the bush family. Pull your head out your ass.

Please point to a post any where that I have ever stated that I support the "Bush family". You cannot...so it is you that has his head up his ass...now isn't it...sport?

[Rochard]

Sorry fucker, you don't choose who to fight, when to fight, or where. You signed up for the military.

My father was a US Marine who died in Vietnam when I was nine months old. We can argue and debate why we were in Vietnam until the cows come home, but at the end of the day my father signed up for the military, and our government - for better or for worse - decided to send our troops to Vietnam. You can go back and question why US troops were deployed to any country and never come to a proper reason - Why did we send troops to fight Nazi Germany, or Korea, or Vietnam?

[Scott McD]

Originally Posted by Monotony

Quiet Brit.

Truth hurts huh.

[theking]

Originally Posted by Rochard

Sorry fucker, you don't choose who to fight, when to fight, or where. You signed up for the military.

My father was a US Marine who died in Vietnam when I was nine months old. We can argue and debate why we were in Vietnam until the cows come home, but at the end of the day my father signed up for the military, and our government - for better or for worse - decided to send our troops to Vietnam. You can go back and question why US troops were deployed to any country and never come to a proper reason - Why did we send troops to fight Nazi Germany, or Korea, or Vietnam?

There are some that simply seem not to understand the oath they are taking and they have this idea that the movies accurately portray what military life or war actually is.

I once knew an eighteen year old that had enlisted and did not last even two weeks of basic training before being given a General Discharge under less than Honorable conditions. He complained that they woke him up at 4:30 AM and had him doing pushups in gravel which he said was painful to his hands. Oh shivers.

[Nikki_Licks]

Sad day for him and many others.....

And bush along cheney have always been a piece of shit

[TheLegacy]

Originally Posted by Rochard

Sorry fucker, you don't choose who to fight, when to fight, or where. You signed up for the military.

My father was a US Marine who died in Vietnam when I was nine months old. We can argue and debate why we were in Vietnam until the cows come home, but at the end of the day my father signed up for the military, and our government - for better or for worse - decided to send our troops to Vietnam. You can go back and question why US troops were deployed to any country and never come to a proper reason - Why did we send troops to fight Nazi Germany, or Korea, or Vietnam?

Very true. in the end you sign to take orders not question them. Those decisions are for those with the most information. Anyone including us will never know the full details surrounding any activity made by the forces nor can you have a force that could at any time decide to challenge orders or refuse to do the task.

[RandyRandy]

Those who served in Vietnam had a legitimate gripe about seeing action because most were drafted. Those serving in today's military all signed up voluntarily. They weren't drafted. It was their choice. Based on the historical aggression of the US, if you are in the military, you will probably be put in harm's way at some point. But again, it was your choice to sign up.

[theking]

Originally Posted by RandyRandy

Those who served in Vietnam had a legitimate gripe about seeing action because most were drafted. Those serving in today's military all signed up voluntarily. They weren't drafted. It was their choice. Based on the historical aggression of the US, if you are in the military, you will probably be put in harm's way at some point. But again, it was your choice to sign up.

Correct.

[Mutt]

Whether you are drafted or voluntarily enlist, every soldier deserves to know why he's fighting and what he may give up his life for, they and their families and the public and Congress need to know the purpose and objective of any war as well as the best estimate of the price that will be paid in lives and dollars to achieve the objective. The American people were lied to on Iraq. An enlisted man has to follow orders, but he damn well has a moral right to know why and what he's going to die for.

The saying goes 'if wars were fought by middle aged men we'd have far less wars' - the truth.

The good thing is as a species we are becoming more peaceful, less war on earth right now than in an period since major civilizations began.

I would have loved to believe that the US went into Iraq with the goal to dispose of and disarm a brutal dictator and replace him with the foundation of a democracy. Even if the US truly believed that was the case it's incredibly naive to believe you can do that anywhere in the Middle East, a snakepit of religious lunacy, greed, poverty and oppression thousands of years in the making.

[helterskelter808]

Originally Posted by AsianDivaGirlsWebDude

Complete letter of Tomas Young:
I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries.

I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some one million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all ? the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.

How modest of him to write a letter on behalf of thousands of other people who surely can't possibly have any reason to disagree with his personal opinion.

I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans ? my fellow veterans ? whose future you stole.

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit.

Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

Bush and Cheney are cowardly bad guys and war is hell and makes people rich? Mind = blown.

I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States.

Did he imagine he'd be consulted about what he'd be doing?

I did not join the Army to "liberate" Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called "democracy" in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq's oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion.

Ah. So it would be fine if broke Iraqis had to pay for people like him occupying and destroying their country?

The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region.

Iran isn't even the dominant force in the region that starts with the letter "I".

On every level ? moral, strategic, military and economic ? Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love.

I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.

I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn't lying a sin? Isn't murder a sin? Aren't theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.

My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.

So, typical simple-minded military dumbass signs up to kill innocent Afghans (because he's happy to believe Bush and Cheney on that one for some reason) then, because life doesn't go the way he personally would have liked, he starts whining and blaming other people. Fuck this self-pitying, self-important dipshit.