"The Last Letter": A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran
"The Last Letter": A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran
By Tomas Young
Truthdig
18 March 2013
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 1 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.
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.
(snip)
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.
Full letter: http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/the_last_letter_20130318
Tomas Young has passed.
= new reply since forum marked as read
sad indeed. A waste of a human life among thousands caused by the RW MIC war machine of this country. But .......americans keep voting for them, the war mongers I mean.
Amy Goodman has film and interviews with Thomas Young archived, and today she had Phil Donahue on talking about his film that included Thomas. If anyone is interested in previous coverage of Thomas, just go visit http://www.DemocracyNow.org
RIP, Dear Thomas. You take part of our hearts with you.
(George is wearing a crucifix. How cute!)
And Cheney gets Personal Attention:
Today!
I won't give link...because you know it...but, it was an excellent report on him and what he was about ..!
Hey..don't feel bad....You had to expand your life and no one can extend ANGST without it Eating your Heart Out and causing one to almost Suicide themselves in dispair. Everyone needs a "Time Out." It wasn't Up to You to "Save the World." It's only to us to KEEP WORKING!
The Fight has to Go On.......We needed more info.....to go on in our lives..........and NOW to REVISIT. But...everyone needs a rest of spirit to re-energize...to Fight the Battle
Regards,
Hyperbolic KoKo ........
