Mother of slain soldier says his life 'wasted'

[kskiska]

Texas native with ties to Cocke County only in Iraq for 17 days

An Army soldier with Cocke County ties has died in Iraq, a loss that leaves his mother bitterly critical of the U.S.-led operation.

"He was there two weeks and three days I feel like his life was wasted," Patricia Brady said Wednesday of Pfc. Daniel Anderson, who died Sunday. "A lot of people say he's a hero, but to me his life was wasted along with many others."

Brady, who lives in the Hartford community, said she and her son had spoken at length about his decision first to join the Army and then to serve in Iraq.

"I am very much a pacifist," she said. "Danny knew this, but it was his decision."

Anderson was so fond of life as a soldier he returned to his high school in Texas to speak to students about a military career, according to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.

Anderson, who had visited his family in Cocke County and North Carolina several times over the past several years, was killed in a shootout at a Baghdad checkpoint.

more (regist. req'd)…
http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/national/article/0,1406,KNS_350_3590276,00.html

[Stand and Fight]

1. Could you post the rest of the article in parts?

Or send them to me via PM so I can? People generally hate to register. It's a nuisance and Big Brother is a pain in the arse.

[onehandle]

2. See if that paper is listed here.....

http://www.bugmenot.com/

[kskiska]

6. It is. That's where I got it.

[hector459]

20. War is a racket!!

http://www.veteransforpeace.org/war_is_a_racket_033103.htm

Don't believe me. Believe someone who can prove it.

[The Backlash Cometh]

54. I know someone who works for Lockheed who believed:

(1) Welfare to the military defense corporations was a necessary thing. and

(2) War was good for the economy.

[Tsiyu]

3. How sad. My heart just grieves for that Mama

So much death. So much greed. When will our Dem leaders (?) rise up against this Fascism?


May you rest in peace, Dear Daniel :cry:

[4_Legs_Good]

4. /salute

Such a horrible waste

david

[wryter2000]

5. That poor lady

I can't begin to experience how horrible she feels. :cry:

[edbermac]

7. Yeah and we know who wasted him...

George "Blood and Guts" Bush...

"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few morans..."

With my apologies to Winston Churchill...:grr:

[ElectroPrincess]

8. In a directly related issue: Many Mothers of Slain Soldiers ...

focus on the kind humanitarian efforts that they can donate in the name (memory) of their fallen child:

Slain soldiers' mothers reaching out to Iraqis
Delegation bringing cash, relief supplies to Fallujah refugees

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/12/27/BAG3LAHDM61.DTL

Mother of a Slain Soldier Speaks Out
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0127-09.htm

A number of Family Members of Slain Soldiers have banded together


Cindy Sheehan co-founded an organization Gold Star Families for Peace, which is made up of parents, siblings and other family members of soldiers who have died in the Iraq War. Gold Star Mothers was an organization that began during the Second World War for mothers of slain soldiers. It has been a tradition for mothers to put gold stars in their windows if their son (or now daughter) had been killed in war, but the activist connotation is more a recent evolution.

However, Sheehan said she hadn’t been aware until after starting the organization that there was a group during the Vietnam War called Gold Star Moms, which also formed in protest against that war.

One of the things she would like to change is how military recruiters go about their business, going into poor neighborhoods and preying on those who cannot afford to go to college, and offering them “the world.” “Many kids go into the military because they can’t afford college,” she said. “I think there should be some way to help these kids.” Also, recruiters should give a more honest picture of what being in the military entails, she added.

She said she doesn’t want to “just complain,” so offered other suggestions to get involved: to write to or try to speak personally to political representatives was particularly important. She said having an audience recently with California Senator Barbara Boxer, who had been against the war from the beginning, has probably made a difference in the senator’s recent increased level of statements against the war.

More Resources:

Gold Star Families for Peace: http://www.gsfp.org/

CommonDreams.org: http://www.commondreams.org/

TruthOut.org: http://www.truthout.org/

[atreides1]

9. In Flanders Fields

"In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.


Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from falling hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields."

[fooj]

10. God forgive us.

[dbt]

11. Somebody needs to burn in Hell for this!

A separate and much more intense hell than Patricia Brady is going through. Angels be all around her!

[still_one]

12. no it wasn't wasted

it helped enrich buckey bush

[Journeyman]

13. Some call him hero, eh? . . .

why must itself up every of a park
 
anus stick some quote statue unquote to
prove that a hero equals any jerk
who was afraid to dare to answer "no"?
quote citizens unquote might otherwise
forget(to err is human;to forgive
divine)that if the quote state unquote says
"kill" killing is an act of christian love.
"Nothing" in 1944 AD
"can stand against the argument of mil
itary necessity"(generalissimo e)
and echo answers "there is no appeal
from reason"(freud)--you pays your money and
you doesn't take your choice.Ain't freedom grand


e.e. cummings

[Guckert]

14. Bush's war profiteers will personally thank the family with a box of nuts.

This whole war is a waste, and the more GOP kool aide drinking lemmings figure this out, the better. I think the dead soldiers parents should also sue Donny yellowback Rumsfeld.

[SixStrings]

15. I have a hard time with this...

Call me a prick, but I have a hard time feeling any compassion for soldiers and their family members when they are KIA. Did they not know what they were getting into? Take a look at your history - constant, unrelenting war around the globe, Vietnam, Panama, Gulf War - is it a surprise that your nation is at war? What the hell did they think they were signing on for? Is your media that suppressed that the average citizen see's the military as a viable and productive profession? Jesus, they're all a bunch of armed thugs whose only responsibility is to their elite masters.
I keep thinking about F911 and Mrs. Lipscomb. To me, and a lot of people (Canadian's, mind you), she and people like her are a huge part of the problems surfacing in your country today. Listen to how she talks - she was so proud to come from a miltary family, and even supported the war. But once her son get's killed, she changes her mind set completely? So let me get this straight - as long as her and her family did not have to sacrifice or suffer, the war was a good thing? That's scary.
I suppose the innocent family members need compassion, but let's not forget the reason why people enlist in the military. How many young men and women enlisted after 9/11, solely for the revenge factor? I feel no compassion for them.

[AngryOldDem]

16. I can see where you're coming from

I got into an argument with a relative recently over this exact point.

But there were some who did enlist after 9/11 because they did think it was their duty to defend their country. Misguided, maybe, but I'm hesitant to say that all had a revenge motive. Also, for a lot of people, the military is their only way out of wherever they are. Another failing of our society, in my opinion. (This is especially true when you consider that when they get out of the military, their chances of being worse off than before they went in are higher.)

I know that if my child were killed in this war, there would be no way in hell that I would accept it gracefully. I truly cannot understand how some families can rationalize their loss by saying it was a "patriotic duty" or "he died for his country." But I blame the families less than I do the Bush administration. It was the administration's lies that got their children killed, no matter what the reasons were for why they enlisted. Some still support the administration; that also baffles and at times angers me.

But, I will not add to these families' burden by making any kind of judgment. All I know is how I would react. And it would not be with kind words and pretty platitudes.

And you're right -- it's easy to be for a war if you don't see your own kid coming home in a body bag, and the cynic in me believes that when we begin seeing daily body counts reach Vietnam numbers, that's when you'll be hearing Ma and Pa Kettle demanding an end to the war. Why should things change? People don't care until something directly affects them -- often, it means someone they love getting killed.

[LynnTheDem]

17. You can't understand it fully if you don't live here.

I'm dual Canadian-American, living in the USA the past few years; unless you live here you simply cannot understand the intense and immense propaganda that's been going on.

The vast majority of republicans STILL BELIEVE totally that Iraq did 911, that Iraq was in bed with OBL and al Qaeda, that Hussein was roaming the streets of Iraq raping and murdering with his "purple plastic people shredder" machine. They believe Iraq was just about to over-run America, that they had WMD and that we've already found WMD in Iraq.

They believe the majority of the world, Canada included, SUPPORTED bush's invasion of Iraq.

Because all the above, while being 100% pure BULLSHIT, is what the President of the United States and his government have been saying and implying over & over & over & over & over nonstop, and it's what every US news station on the TV, in the papers, on the radio have been saying & implying 85+ percent of the time, over & over & over & over & over.

Sure, half of Americans do know the above is pure BULLSHIT. But most of them aren't and never were listening to the President of the United States and his Cartel and the rightwing media, because they're not rightwing. So they've gone to outside sources for their information. And they, like the vast majority of the world, know bush LIED, they know bush IS STILL LYING, and they know troops are dead and dying for not a goddamned thing but a politician's lies and corporate greed.

The propaganda going on here is incredible, and unless you live here, you really just can't understand how so many can be so thoroughly misinformed...but they are.

[Maat]

18. God bless her! She is in my prayers!

Her son made a decision, and now SHE suffers. She did her best to educate the child, but her child made a choice that stood in opposition to that.

Comforting energy to her!

And may those in Washington be held accountable in terms of kharma earned for their warmongering (or inaction). And so it is!

[seriousstan]

19. I really don't care how his mother feels about his life.

Her son was proud of his decision and that is all that matters. I don't live my life according to my parents beliefs and I am sure many more here don't either.

Let's not be hypocritical here. If your parents disapprove of your lifestyle, do you care? Would you care if you lost your life in a cause that was dear to you but your parents, who didn't share your passion, came out and said you wasted your life? NO!

The only person who should and can define their life's purpose is the person themselves, not someone outside who disagrees.

If she can't set her own interests aside and take pride in her son's dedication to a vision at, least in public, FUCK HER!

She reminds me of parents that "disown" their children because they are gay and then when they die of an acquired disease says "what did they expect".

[Boswells_Johnson]

21. She doesn't want others to die. What's wrong with sharing her views?n/t

[seriousstan]

22. She can share her views all she wants, but she is using the death

of her son as a conduit to the public. Would you also see no problem with a preacher using the Aids death of his son as a rallying point against gays?

[Boswells_Johnson]

23. That's not a valid analogy. Firstly, I don't believe one chooses to be gay

and people choose to be soldiers.

Secondly, war is manufactured by outside interests. AIDS is a disease.

Thirdly, she wants people to avoid dying for someone else's wealth. The preacher would be opposed to someone choosing to live naturally.

[seriousstan]

25. The fact remains that she is using her son's death for her own purpose.

Her son didn't share her views and she should respect that fact, especially in the matter of his death. This woman sicken me.

[Boswells_Johnson]

30. Your line of reasoning implies acceptance of soldiers dying in Iraq.

You're entitled to that belief, of course, but I disagree.

[seriousstan]

32. I accept a person's choice. He made it and stood by it. I do not accept

people, especially parents, using the death of their children to promote their own views ESPECIALLY when they are counter to the departed's views.

[Boswells_Johnson]

34. There you have it. We'll agree to disagree. However, sometimes

the departed have made wrong choices. I see no problem in pointing out mistakes so that others can learn from them.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

51. When you accept and live her grief, you can tell her how to express it

[ElectroPrincess]

26. No she's not ... you want to HATE and hate her, then be my guest

but MANY Mothers and other Family Members of Slain Soldiers turn their grief into a positive effort to counter this war. She has a right to express herself for heaven's sake, she just buried her son.

Gold Star Families for Peace: http://www.gsfp.org /

[seriousstan]

29. I don't hate her, she disgusts me. I don't hate vile piles of midden

I simply don't think they have a place in the public discourse. She is disrespecting her son's choice and claiming he wasted his life by pursuing his choice AFTER HIS DEATH!

[diamond14]

36. if that young man had LISTENED TO HIS MOTHER, he'd be alive today

IMO, a lot of these teen-age recruited killers are simply rebelling against their parents....sadly, the stupidity of teenagers ends up with their own death or dismemberment.....

[Name removed]

38. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[diamond14]

42. not listening to his mother and ENDS UP DEAD....

I agree with his mother....he wasted his life....he could have listened to his mother and ended up ALIVE as a MAN, rather than DEAD as a bag of bones....there is a difference that you fail to realize: a "bag of bones" is NOT a MAN.....

I've ALWAYS respected my mother...that's the BIG difference between a MAN and a disrespectful BOY....

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

41. Perhaps what she means is

he didn't waste his life, it was wasted for him using a false cause and appelaing to his naivete.....?

[Castilleja]

61. This is how I read her statement, too

I don't think she is calling his whole life a waste either... But however she means it, she is entitled to have and speak her opinion, whether or not some dude on a web board likes it or not.

[HeeBGBz]

44. She has a right to speak her mind

Just as her son had the right to the choice that cost him his life.

Especially considering the propaganda fed to recruits that glorify the military as some sort of rite of manhood and gung-ho patriotic duty.

[silvermachine]

56. You are pathetic

eom

[NewYorkerfromMass]

65. I'll bet he didn't think he would be killed either

hindsight is 20/20. I advise you to check your own level of disrespect to the mother.

[ElectroPrincess]

24. IMO that's some serious SPIN SeriousDan /eom

[seriousstan]

27. If you have no problem with a parent saying a dead son wasted his life

because he had different values and followed these values, fine. I do, it this case and in any case, regardless of the political side I might be on.

[ElectroPrincess]

28. Guess we can't lump you in with the "Blessed are the Merciful" ... but OK

You already have, in a very disrespectful way to a grieving mother, "Fuck Her" ?!? :P

Whatever thrills you stanserious ... the quality of mercy is lost on many folks, including yourself. May you never have to face the death of a Son or Daughter. However, if you do, all your emotions will be completely appropriate. You have assured us of that ... I have no worries about you. :-)

[seriousstan]

31. Grieving mothers don't publicly announce that their dead son wasted his

life. She has disrespected herself and his wishes.

[ElectroPrincess]

33. You are an expert on grief, and specifically grieving Mothers ?...

Gee what a talented man you must be ... what do you do with the little spare time that's left? Oh, that's right, you pass judgments on people you haven't even met.

Outstanding, knock yourself out. :wtf:

[annabanana]

35. Grieving mothers are in a circle of hell that no one can comprehend

except another grieving mother. If you ever find yourself in extremis, may you be surrounded by more gentleness than you can claim as your own.

[seriousstan]

37. You are right, I can't understand why a mother would say her son

wasted his life when he died pursuing a purpose that he wholeheartedly believed in. Thank God that is a "mother" thing that I can't understand.

Respecting the choises of a loved one, especially in death, must be a "father" thing that I can understand.

[peacebird]

43. it is far more important that she supported her son in the life he chose

and now that he is dead - because of the life he chose - she feels free to speak HER truth - which is her belief that her beloved son DIED in vain. His death was a loss to the universe, and his precious life was wasted.
Her son was a young man - perhaps with the wisdom of another decade or so he too would have seen the folly that is war.
I will not stand in jusgement over a greiving mother speaking out in the hopes of saving even one other parent from the pain she herself will feel for the rest of her life.

[LisaL]

50. It's kind of difficult to respect someone's choice,

if you don't believe in it, or think it was a wrong choice. Her son was in Iraq for about 2 weeks and was killed. What was he even killed for, do tell...

[burrowowl]

52. What would you say of a mother

who tried her damnest to prevent her child from getting into drugs and ODing and said her child wasted his or her life?

[ElectroPrincess]

60. Thank You ... you are thoughtful to give us that much ...

Hey, this will come as a shocker but as a military veteran myself, I did not care for her particular choice of words. Since her son, up till the very end, wholeheartedly believed in his mission, she could have shown a little more delicacy and humbleness for his desires.

However, perhaps it's just a "compassion thing" that I don't condemn her. Mainly because she's at her lowest point of despair. Imagine all the conflicting emotions passing through her being? I want to believe that she respected her son's life but, at this time, is so overwhelmed by anger and sorrow, the words did not come out the way she meant them. Well, as a Mother, I want to believe that to be true.

Thanks again for the little example of perhaps understanding her conflicting pain at the time. It's a good start and understanding each other's perspective. :-)

[neuvocat]

40. What...???

She's angry over her son's death and you worry about how she supposedly disrespected herself and her son?

You know what, go ahead and lose a child in combat and then show everyone how a grieving parent is supposed to behave. Geez!

[driver8]

47. Thank you...I cannot believe what I am reading.

The poor woman is grieving...her son was killed in a fucked up, stupid war. What if the mom was (is) against the war and didn't want her son to go into the military? Don't you think she would perceive his life as "wasted"? I know I would -- a life lost for Shrub's lie.

Good God, cut the woman some slack.

[LisaL]

48. She says she is a pacifist, so I imagine you are exactly right.

Of course she think his life was wasted, and I agree. He went there for 2 weeks, he was killed, and for what?

[leftchick]

57. "for our Freedoms" of course!!!

don't you listen to that aWol** , cowardly, chimpass** piece of shit called the CIC**???

:puke:

[LisaL]

49. Well, excuse me.

She is supposed to pretend he died for something now?
:spank: :spank: :spank: :spank: :spank: :spank:

[jonnyblitz]

55. maybe she was just being truthful because his life WAS wasted

simple.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

39. Sad to say,

but in my opinion the mother is correct. All lives lost in this debacle have been wasted. Who on this earth is any safer or more secure since this shit started?
Not Iraqi's, not the Gi's in Iraq, not any one here in the US...

[GetTheRightVote]

45. I have children & they may walk a different path, but know how I will feel

They decide their own lives as I do mine, if this were my child I too would feel they threw their life away and left me to cry over them. You need to look a the * lies and not make poor decisions based on them. When as a nation will we learn that honor based on lies is not complete or honorable in its actions. It is all really sad though.

:kick:

[stanwyck]

46. Let's not judge a parent who

just lost a child. The grief must be unbearable.

[lebkuchen]

53. It must be very difficult for parents who are in the military

and whose parents served in the military who are now trying to talk their kids out of following in their footsteps.

[leftchick]

59. My Dad, God bless him, is a WWII Navy Veteran who re-enlisted!

He is almost 86 now and very sick , but we still have great talks all of the time on the phone. He is disgusted with what this country "He Fought For" has become. He is sickened beyond belief what the thugs running this country are getting away with and for all of the soldiers he sees as dying for LIES!

I love my Daddy! My Hero! :loveya:

[ElectroPrincess]

63. Bless our veteran Dads!

My Dad is 85 y.o. and in the final stages of Alzheimer's disease within a States Veterans' Hospital. My Mother and older Brother go to visit him almost every day.

I send true empathy out to you LeftChick. :hi:

Our Dad's - Our True Heroes! :loveya:

[Mari333]

58. There can be nothing more heartbreaking then losing a child

nothing.

[Skittles]

64. Marianne! How is your boy doing?

we are so happy for you and him that he returned safe.

[Mari333]

66. Hes fine. Glad to be back

and hopefully wont return. He said he wont even let people know he was there..there is no honour in it..he said he saw too many 9, 10, 11, 12 year olds incarcerated for nothing and held for months at a time in prison cells..minus their parents.

[Skittles]

62. his life was not wasted - his death was

my condolences to this woman