I have often noted, with much sadness, that one of the most unfortunate things about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is that only those who have served (and their families) have been asked to sacrifice anything at all.
On August 2nd, 2009, Sergeant First Class Alejandro "Alex" Granado III was killed by insurgents in Afghanistan. He was 42 years old. Alex was a friend of my mother's. She found out about his death just yesterday. She told me that after she found out Alex was going to Afghanistan, she began to watch the news regarding Operation Enduring Freedom much more closely. And that is only natural.
The large majority of us live in an America where the wars our country is fighting are events that are happening "over there" to "our brave men and women." They are merely afterthoughts in a country where we cut taxes during a war for the first time and watched an all-volunteer army suffer the load of wars with no clearly-defined mission and no end in sight.
During Vietnam, our entire country was touched by the war effort. Obviously, the threat of the draft hung over the head of nearly everyone. Everyone knew someone who was there or who was scared as hell they would go there. And though the populace at that time certainly fought to bring our troops home because they saw something that was wrong, would they have done so if their friends and family members weren't called to sacrifice?
As Sen. John Kerry famously said, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" Alex Granado will not be the last man to die for a mistake. On August 4th, Private Keiffer P. Wilhelm, of Plymouth, OH, died in Iraq. Private Wilhelm was 19 years old.
Where is the outrage? Where are the marches and the protests? Where is the pressure on President Obama to bring our troops home? Certainly the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have no clearer defined missions than the Vietnam quagmire. Certainly they are for no better a reason nor do they have a more justified purpose.
Men like Alex Granado do not deserve to die under such circumstances. My mother tells me he was a man who believed strongly in and loved what he did. Sgt. First Class Granado had actually retired from the service and yet he had volunteered to return to Afghanistan again even after serving around six years total in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why are men like him sent to die at the hands of a resurgent Taliban? And for what? What do I tell my mother when she wonders why her friend is gone? What should be said to Alex's family?
Yes, President Bush signed an agreement that will mostly end our entanglement in Iraq at the end of 2011. Of course, some 50,000 residual forces will remain. What do we tell the families of those men and women who die before the end of 2011? I also understand that there is significant support for the war in Afghanistan among the Democratic Party, and even among progressives. I have yet to grasp this. What will be victory there? What will we hold up to Alejandro Granado's family and say, "This. Alex died for this."
I am a strong supporter of the President's. However, I cannot, in good conscience, support a war in which I can find no justifiable purpose. We owe more to our brave men and women. We owe them to only ask them to fight and kill and die for those ideals for which they signed up - the ability to live in a free America and the mandate to be a light to the world.
How can we stay silent and not raise our voice to this President and this Congress? We must renew our demands for the immediate withdrawal of our troops from both Iraq and Afghanistan. If the deaths of people like Sgt. Granado and Pvt. Wilhelm led more citizens to become outraged and ask why these brave men and women continue to die, then their deaths would truly have the higher purpose that they deserve.
To read more about Sgt. First Class Alejandro Granado III:
Faces of the Fallen
Story in his hometown paper