Veterans Day is over. Forgive me if I did not hear a speech dedicated to the last man or woman to die for the criminal U.S. war in Vietnam.
Why is their name forgotten... or unknown? Who will be the last U.S. soldier to die in Iraq? Will there be a monument built for them? Will there be a somber parade?
These are questions that I hope will burn in the hearts and minds of the new Democratic majority, swept to power in the recent midterm elections. The rush to bipartisanship, in all its phony glory, obscures the ongoing carnage of an illegal war that must be stopped. The longer the Democrats are seen as impotent to change things, the more implicated in the crimes of George W. Bush will they become.
In the section that follows, I will let soldiers speak for themselves about the reality of war. In consolation, I'll conclude with some stanzas from Dylan Thomas.
The
San Francisco Chronicle did a public service today by publishing
selections from Trish Wood's new book, out this year,
What Was Asked of Us: An Oral History of the Iraq War by the Soldiers Who Fought It. You should go read it, or go buy the book. But here are a few selections.
WARNING: these testimonies from our soldiers can be horrifically graphic. But they are the truth of thousands of soldiers and Iraqi citizens every day.
There was a car bomb that -- what happened was, there's an Iraqi police station and right next to it was, like, a coffee shop, and a lot of the police officers would go there to get coffee in the mornings. There were a lot of civilians in that area. And a car bomb just drove up and just indiscriminately killed everybody there -- cops and civilians. And these explosions that happen are just so enormous that body parts can fly up to a hundred meters away....
There's no way to get emotional about it. Like I said, you're just numb to it, you know, and just, like, there's no crying about it. A lot of soldiers joke about it.... It's just a great numbness that creeps over everybody. But you know, it did cross my mind later, like, well, that's pretty disgusting, I should have been more grossed out. I hope I'm not f -- up in the head.
Then, there are the Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs):
We had a lot of pretty bad IEDs (improvised explosive devices), but for me the one that really marked it was an army unit that got hit by an IED in a drainage culvert.
It was right on the outside of Habbaniya. They had filled a drainage culvert with explosives and blew up an armored personnel carrier. We knew we were in the s -- at that point because when we drove up to the scene, the hole in the road was so big that an Abrams tank on the scene couldn't drive over the hole; it had to go around it. ... There were the remains of four or five guys spread out over 600 square yards. We had to walk a grid. It was just like a police scene....
If it wasn't ashes blowing in the wind, we grabbed it. I mean, we recovered bodies out of a burnt helicopter that literally were just cremated. I mean, they were vertebrae and ribs, and the only reason we knew we had two was because we counted the vertebrae and there were too many vertebrae to be one. Our chaplain prayed over that. The sad part is it's someone's son and that's all you've got left.
Or this cry from out of the fog of war:
There was a difficult moment where I'd stopped firing and the combat just died down. So the Iraqi army guys finally got a couple trucks together and they came up from behind us, and once they got on the scene and saw what was happening, they started freaking out. We didn't know why exactly, at first. Then we learned that the guys we shot weren't insurgents but the deputy governor's bodyguards. The moment I heard it, I was just like -- f -- ! I mean, I was just -- I was just floored -- I was just -- you know, I couldn't believe it -- I couldn't believe that.
I think that's quite enough. I won't quote anymore. It's really too much to take.
Nancy Pelosi, I speak directly to you. You are the representative of the district where I work. Speaker-designate Pelosi, I know you are a grandmother and a humane person. I know you must thread the needle of Washington politics and what is supposedly feasible.
But this question must haunt you: after all the madness and horror, what will you say to the mother or father, the grandparents, the siblings, and lovers and friends of the last person to die for Bush's arrogance in Iraq? Will you be comfortable that you tried hard enough? Did you do everything in your power?
I have been encouraged to see the Democrats put Iraq forward for immediate consideration. I understand the political realities. I know you don't really take power until next year. But surely you remember the power of the bully pulpit -- and you don't have to be president to use it. But, do not wait long, Speaker Pelosi! The blood of that last soldier is ALREADY shed. His death is coming to meet him, and there is nothing you can do about it.
Except, you can shorten his (or her) agony and our guilt. You can shorten the war. We must end the occupation of Iraq. We must charge those responsible for grave crimes against humanity, starting illegal wars on false premises and looting both the U.S. and Iraq of billions of dollars, killing hundreds of thousands in the process.
This is a special moment in history. The Democrats will be judged heavily for how they handle this crucial issue.
As promised, I will end with a few stanzas from Dylan Thomas. In his poem, A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London, Thomas speaks of another war, and of the death of an innocent, after the massacre of so many innocents...
The majesty and burning of the child's death.
I shall not murder
The mankind of her going with a grave truth
Nor blaspheme down the stations of the breath
With any further
Elegy of innocence and youth.
Deep with the first dead lies London's daughter,
Robed in the long friends,
The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother,
Secret by the unmourning water
Of the riding Thames.
After the first death, there is no other.
Crossposted at NeverInOurNames.com and progressivehistorians.com