Some time back I read about a local Marine badly injured in Afghanistan, in the St. Pete Times, (now the Tampa Bay Times) by staff writer Drew Harwell. His writing had a way of bringing the horrors of this war to people here at home in such a chilling way that you find tears welling in your eyes. I had written about it earlier in a diary here.
Dad, I've been hit. I've lost both my legs.
A father answering his phone, with caller ID showing US Government-Honolulu, hears his son's voice,
"Dad, I've been hit. I've lost both my legs."
"Where are you? Where are you?" the father asks.
"I'm in Afghanistan," his son said. "I can't talk.
They're taking me to Germany. I can contact you in 24 hours."
Then the line went dead.
The father screamed his son's name, and started to cry.
American soldiers and Marines walking combat patrols in Afghanistanhave suffered a surge of gruesome injuries, losing one or both legs and often their genitals to crude homemade bombs Taliban insurgents bury in dirt roads and pathways. The latest wave of severe injuries comes after Gen. David Petraeus ordered U.S. troops in Afghanistan last year to get out of their protective armored vehicles and start walking. "Patrol on foot whenever possible and engage the population," he directed in guidance to his troops last August. The order was hailed as an essential counterinsurgency tactic used to get closer to the people, pick up intelligence more effectively and demonstrate American resolve to protect local villagers from Taliban insurgents.
Bruce Springsteen War - What is it good for?
One in three homeless Americans are Veterans. 10 years of war and a country that cannot care for them. A nation's shame.
I live in an area where I encounter these veterans begging on the streets every day. Lost in America, emotionally scarred, drug and alcohol problems, parts of their lives taken away in battle in ways we cannot understand. Broken in mind, body and spirit, and living on the streets.
Joan Baez - Where are your legs that used to run before you left to carry a gun?.......
Is the only way out negotiating with the Taliban? And.....
Did we miss an opportunity to negotiate for peace?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Afghanistan. This endless, unwinnable war. The loneliest diary to write here on dailykos is one about the war in Afghanistan. We have the open promise of an end to combar within the next 2 1/2 years, depending on conditions.
We have somewhere around 90,000 troops there along with over 113,000 private contractors. Outsourcing our wars must work - the deaths of private contractors is higher than the deaths of our troops.
More troops now dying of suicide after they come home than troops killed in battle.
This is now our 11th year, our longest war. So many maimed, broken troops returning home. Why is this war not even an issue this election year?
Is this war near its end? Is it worth the pain of all those who die and suffer? What will be our victory? Or will we always be asking, "was it worth the pain?"
Faces of the Fallen
And for those who only made it home to the mortuary at Dover Air Force Base.....