I read this AP article today in the Star Tribune. It is very frustrating to read.
WASHINGTON -- The Army said Saturday it knew for more than a year after 1st Lt. Kenneth Ballard's death in Iraq in May 2004 that he was not killed in action, as it initially reported. The family was not told the truth until Friday.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/5607517.html
Why would the Army do this to a family? Seriously. Who would lie about a soldier's death to a family? The corruption of this administration is so pervasive that it seeps into every area of our government.
Maybe it was just an error. Very likely. But why are errors and incompetence so common place with the Bush administration and everything they try to handle? After a while, the neglect and incompetence seems difficult to believe. They just do not care.
Ballard's mother, Karen Meredith, of Mountain View, Calif., said in a telephone interview that she is angry and will press for a full explanation. She is a public critic of the war and has attended anti-war protests in Crawford, Texas, outside President Bush's ranch, with grieving mother and peace activist Cindy Sheehan.
Meredith said she blames the Army's error on official incompetence, not an intent to cover up the truth.
"This news is stunning to me,'' she said. "People in the Army knew this news for 15 months, and why they couldn't be bothered to tell me the truth when this first happened and to have me go through this pain 15 months later is unconscionable on the part of the Army. It's a betrayal to my son's service,'' she said.
A letter from Army Secretary Francis Harvey was hand-delivered to her Friday in Mountain View. She said Harvey wrote, "I sincerely apologize to you for the unfortunate series of events that resulted in your not being informed.''
Army officials said the failure to notify the family of the true cause of Ballard's death was an oversight. The military sometimes incorrectly categorizes the cause of war deaths. What is so unusual about the Ballard case is that the error was recognized early but not reported to the family for more than a year.
On Memorial Day in 2004, the day after Kenneth Ballard died, the Army informed his family that he had been killed by enemy fire while on a combat mission in the south-central Iraqi city of Najaf. In a casualty announcement from June 1, the Pentagon said Ballard died "during a firefight with insurgents.''
The Army disclosed on Saturday that Ballard, 26, actually died of wounds from the accidental discharge of a M240 machine gun on his tank after his platoon had returned from battling insurgents in Najaf.
Ballard's mother thinks it is a mistake. Fine. It was an error. Let's yet again give them the benefit of the doubt. It still speaks volumes about the priority being placed on our soldiers.
The Commander-in-Chief sets the tone for the entire military. Bush does not care about the dying men and women in Iraq. Errors about the details of their deaths are irrelevant to him, of course.
This war is getting a lack of attention in the press right now because of Katrina. Yes, the hurricane is a huge tragedy that Bush has completely screwed. But let's not keep our eye of the Iraq war. Let's shine the light of incompetence even more on the Bush administration.
Corporate America has been allowed to deceive Americans because of the lack of government interest. People have lost their life savings because of false corporate reports on earnings. The Iraq War has been a huge failure for the Bush administration. The prevention of damage, evacuation of New Orleans, and delay in saving people from the aftermath of Katrina has all been mismanaged by the Bush administration.
What more do Americans need to hear to join the progressive revolution?