Soldier who lost feet optimistic about future, but puzzles over war

[UpInArms]

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/8228921.htm?1c

excerpt:

Two weeks after he entered Iraq, a U.S. Air Force jet dropped a laser-guided bomb on his unit. Fernandez, who was asleep, awoke to find his feet had been blown off by what he thought for weeks was incredibly accurate enemy fire.

Now, Fernandez wonders why the Air Force pilot didn't use his infrared scope to identify the Army unit before dropping a bomb. "We were easy to identify," he says. He also puzzles over a war he once supported - "I know there are politics involved" - and he longs to find meaning in it. "I hope Iraqis will be better off in the future," he says.

<snip>

"The other day I went to my son's house, and he crawled to the window and yelled that he couldn't get to the door till he put his legs on," his father, also John Fernandez, says. "Things like this break my heart. I keep asking myself, `For what?'"

<snip>

The details of the tragic mistake, which Fernandez has never seen, are contained in a Department of Defense report. They give a chilling account of three branches of the armed services mistakenly fighting one another in a vicious cycle of death and destruction.

...more...

[0007]

1. Wow! how can 'ya not feel for this guy?

Bring the troops home....

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. Three branches of the military fighting each other.

And it doesn't help that the Air Force has a snob attitude about the other two branches of the military.

[lostnfound]

12. uhh.. "mistakenly" is the key word here. nt

[The Backlash Cometh]

13. It happens all too often.

Frankly, I'm tired of letting people off the hook because they're incompetent, but not corrupt. I can take a mistake here or there, but that it happens all too often tells me there is a problem with the method of operation.

[peacebuzzard]

3. he probably just wanted a job to save for college.

Damn. I hate the repukes..;(

[patricia92243]

4. Remember-Soldiers who are actively in the military will be court-martialed

if they actually critisize who/what is going on. So when you hear soldiers NOT saying anything against the Iraq war or Bush administration - it is because they CAN'T.

I'm surprised this unfortunate young man was allowed to say as much as he has. Maybe he is not actually in the military now.

[thinkingwoman]

5. an active soldier home between deployments

spoke to students at our local high school last month. Talking about how he felt before being deployed to Iraq he said that Bush hadn't really made a good case for war, but that now that he's been there he thinks we (american soldiers) are doing a lot of good over there (building schools, etc).

We reported what he said in a front page article in that week's issue of our newspaper (we own the paper). We put in his comment about doing good and the media not reporting it AND we put in his comment about Bush not making a good case for war.

One week later we received a letter from him claiming he had been misquoted.

He hadn't. We have what he said in our notes and we are experienced journalists who have NEVER before been accused of misquoting anyone.

Two days ago the soldier's mother was in the office, thanking us for coverae and letting us know that he was shipping back out soon. She didn't act the least bit upset and didn't mention the misquoting which she certainly would have if we had actually misquoted him. We believe he wrote the letter he had to write to keep himself out of trouble.

It's disgusting that soldiers are censored this way. Probably a third of the kids he spoke to will sign up when they graduate high school. This is a big military town in a big military rural area. They should know the truth of what is going on.

[Ilsa]

6. Wow, isn't that scary -- the power of words...

opinions, quotes, "misquotes" (yeah, right).

It's one thing to be over there "doing alot of good" as the soldier said. I think those articles tend to miss the point, "At what cost?"

Thanks for your story. The censorship is a real eye-opener.

[The Backlash Cometh]

7. A right-winger said this about a soldier who visited their school:

The soldier was all weepy about killing innocent civilians and described how this was an unexpected outcome of fighting in the Iraq war for him. Now, I didn't mind the part of shock and remorse, but I was angry that it never occurred to the right-winger nor the soldier that innocent civilians would be killed. For crying out loud, the movies about Vietnam were not pretend, and unfortunately, neither is the lesson learned from that war.

The right-wingers have put this concept of patriotism on such a high pedestal that they can't see the depths they will fall because of their idealistic perception. The true tragedy in all this, is that they are taking the rest of us and the country down with them.

[T Bone]

8. Military is not the cost efficient and effective way to build schools

If George Bush really wanted to build schools in Iraq or anywhere for that matter he could have done it anytime by going to the Congress and requesting that it be done through the UN. He could have gone to the Congress and requested that they build schools and homes through the Carter Center and Habitat for Humanity. And it would have been cheaper, less costly in lives all around. This is a pure bullshit rationalization for having gone in and levelled a place that was no threat to us or anyone, not even its neighbors. This is a pure bullshit rationalization for a pre-emptive war that was absolutly not necessary for any reason other than the lies that were contrived and spun out through the propaganda media of the Unitied States.

[saigon68]

11. it does increase Hallibuton's bottom line though

[shanti]

9. i kinda doubt

this guy is active duty anymore with two missing feet.

[rman]

10. answer to the puzzle: pilots are on "go-pills"

It's amphetamine, keeps them awake. These drugs are known to impair judgement wrt driving a car, use of these pills is not approved by the food and drugs administration, so it is experimental.
Officially it is voluntary for pilots to take these pills, but when you don't take them your commander has the right to evualuate your fitness to do the mission and can ground you (if you keep that up you'll come up short on flying hours). The pilots have to sign a document that states as much.
Even the recommended dose has deprimental side-effects to many pilots, including paranoia. But you can take as many as you want. It's not unusual for pilots to take some 10 to 20 pills with them on a mission, some eat them like candy.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/01/02/mistaken.bombing/
'Friendly fire' pilots: Air Force pushes 'go pills'
Lawyers say amphetamines led to accidental killing
Thursday, January 2, 2003 Posted: 9:44 AM EST (1444 GMT)

http://tv.oneworld.net/tapestry?link=3842
Are US pilots taking ‘go pills’ voluntarily or is there ‘coercion’?

http://www.counterpunch.org/heard01232003.html
CounterPunch
January 23, 2003
Flying High
American Pilots Pop "Go Pills," Then Go Kill