My Last Words, by Tomas Young

My Last Words to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
by TOMAS YOUNG

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.

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level—moral, strategic, military and economic—Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.

I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.

I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.

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.

-Tomas Young

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Oath of Enlistment

I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Let me think about Iraq. There was a dictator there named Saddam who had torture chambers built to maim and wound his citizens that didn't go along with his ideas of government. Then there were the citizens that lived as a tribe in the southern wetlands area who were murdered by his forces just because they weren't from his religious faith, same with the Kurds. he probably murdered a million people and was still killing them as America and its allies went in to rid Iraq of this genocidal killer.

So he would have continued to torture and kill if nothing had stopped him so many citizens of Iraq are very happy to see America there to stop his bad ways. They are now trying to get back to some sort of order but now another bad thing is there now called ISIS. They are there because those in power that took control wouldn't let others be allowed into Parliament and because of their not being able to have any say they have to fight to be heard.

I wonder why you are wanting forgiveness when many Iraqis are thankful America and its allies came there but now some are upset because we didn't do more to ensure that everyone could vote and have a shot at being elected.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

And all of that was re-installed by the Americans, only worse - complete with the torture cells, the abuse of the disfavored religious faith (which Saddam did not do, btw - he persecuted rebellion, not religion), and the million killed (also millions of refugees, in the US case).

But the torture and killing have continued, and become worse. And sharia law is now widely established, with tighter oppression of women as was not the case under Saddam. And the country has been divided into newly purified sectarian enclaves, after a few years of horrible ethnic cleansing such as Saddam did not allow. And the basic protections of wage labor, the protections and maintenance of sewer and water and electrical systems, the schools and roads, have been ruined.

Everything except the prospects of the Kurds is worse than under Saddam, much was destroyed, and Iraq made into an oppressive, theocratic, failing State subject to decades of civil war, with no end in sight.

It's good that a few have benefited from the destruction of Iraq as a nation and the misery visited upon most of its people. We wish the Kurds all the luck in the world, as they attempt to forge a nation of their own. But the Iraq War was a disastrous evil perpetrated by liars and profiteers, and we should not overlook the issue of responsibility.

 

Out with one form of government and in with another, same old story nothing really changed only the characters did.

 

Killing Saddam and ending his regime was worth dying for.

 

Long ago and far away
I refused to swear that silly oath, explaining: Support and defend the constitution or obey the orders of the chain of command----just give me one"!
The crazy thing was, that did not stop them from inducting me into the army, and then, later, giving me above top secret security clearances. With each step, I cautioned that I did not swear the oath, nor would I. When on the way to nam, they wanted me to swear that I would not divulge any classified information to the enemy...... again. I refused, saying that if someone was going to torture me by, for instance, shoving sharp things up under my fingernails, or coming anywhere near my balls, I would sing like a canary. Again, my reluctance to swear silly false oaths didn't really seem to matter to the people in charge.

I have long wondered: What in hell is wrong with those people.
Do they not understand simple english?

 

The thing is, someone died for you, and the "pay it forward" concept is always in effect for the price of freedom. Funny how if everyone was like you the country would be overrun with ISIS by now. Loser!

 

Likewise the next US installed regime (Saddam being the first, the current one being the second). ISIS agrees.

 

I agree it didn't work out so well, but the advocating the opposite, preserving Saddam in power, would have been evil. The current regime is not one I would want to overthrow. Destroying ISIS is another worthy cause. But Motor Daddy is correct, when you enlist, you lose the right to pick and choose your battles. I don't believe Young was thinking clearly. It's a case of misplaced anger at his condition. One thing I would agree with him and his family about was the miserable service he was given by the VA, that is a national shame.

 

If you are choosing between doing horrible evils or allowing them, as a rule of thumb doing them is worse. When the horrible evils you are considering doing are worse than the ones you are considering allowing, the choice is even clearer.

Generally, you need a very, very good reason to set about killing complete strangers and wrecking their countries and corrupting your own government and impoverishing your neighbors for the enrichment of your ruling class. Being angry and hurt because somebody else blew up a couple of your buildings, needing to hurt someone in return, isn't good enough imho. Wanting to re-acquire control over the sweetest oil field on the planet and its financials while enriching your buddies in the process isn't good enough either.

When you lose that right, other people acquire it - and the responsibilities that go with it. The manner in which those people acquitted themselves of their responsibilities in this case is clearly and accurately described by Mr Young - he isn't saying anything we don't all know already, is he?

 

It wasn't about that, and nothing we could do could ever match what Saddam did. I don't wish to rehash it all again, the strategy was deeply flawed, but you know Michael's purpose is the same as always, trash the USA and claim moral equivalency between us and our enemies.

 

On the contrary - not only were we already responsible for much of what Saddam did, but we matched him pretty well on our own - even overmatched him in a couple of areas (such as abetting Islamic jihad).

It was amoral, cynical, and criminally corrupt; it led the US into doing evil as a nation for power and money to a few.

He picked a good case, for that purpose.

 

Don't get me wrong, I was a volunteering fool, (the sergeant would say: "I need a volunteer"-"Yeh, you got him" was my reply, then I would cut him off at "I need..." "Yeh you got him"---then for the colonel who replied: "I love a volunteer.---Welcome aboard.") I just have a thing about swearing false oaths, or potentially false oaths
and, no-one died for me. For all of us, sure. (I tried the va hospitals for awhile---i used to get headaches that almost knocked me down---, but the bureaucrats and arrogant docs seemed to think that treating me like shit or a criminal was ok.... so I quit trying to get help there.)
I just made decisions with which I could continue to honor myself and my word. And proceeded to do the best I could in every situation. The job--the mission was always king, and I was it's humble servant.
The stress, fear, terror and dread dissipated as I focused on the tasks at hand.(I did, however spend almost an entire R and R curled up in a corner rocking back and forth and crying a lot, or sleeping-----then a good drunk and back to the tasks at hand) . My orders got screwed up during tet. I looked around and ended up following the only guy who seemed to know what he was doing. He was a green beret, about my age, but 10 times more deadly and battle ready. I took strength and determination from his lead, and the confidence in my proficiency with the m14. I used to be great at the snapshot---see the target, raise the weapon and fire in one smooth motion without ever losing focus---as effortless as you would have just pointing a finger at someone.
Really, you had 3 choices
be afraid before the engagement
be afraid during the engagement
be afraid after the engagement
one is timid, one is a coward, and one is a fool
choose one!
.................
Damned near every veterans day, I hunker down and try and remember the faces of the dead guys(we swore that we'd never forget). (When people would say "Thanks for your service--I used to say---"Words are cheap motherfucker")
And, you know what----I can't remember their faces, just the sadness, and occasionally the screams and cries.
One day a year, every year. In days gone past I would get belligerent on that one day, but I've mellowed somewhat.
Now it's just a day to try and remember, and maybe drink more than normal--- and I do not leave the house.

ISIS-sure, c'mon on over, but move fast and stay off the ridge lines.
It took me a couple decades after the army to be willing to pick up a weapon again. And I love to shoot and rarely miss.
(zero misses in my last 37 shots at white tails)--when I started shooting again, my heart would be pounding so hard that it jostled the weapon----then breathing control to calm the body, then the shot---now, i'm calm from the moment I start to load the round into the 300 win mag.
..........
Young private: "sarg I can't shoot women and children"
Sarg: "Sure you can, just don't lead 'em as much."
................
Bush is Thomas Young's asshole du jour, mine was McNamara.
War sucks, and if our "leaders" led from in front, we would have fewer of them.

 

So you've killed 37 whitetails in gun season. How many years did it take you to get that many deer? What did you do with them?

 

How many years----gee 1-5 per year ... maybe 8-12 years. (I really don't keep track---I don't always fill all the tags)
I ate them, and shared the meat with family and friends.
So far, this year I shot one buck---and have the tags for 3 more deer.
It takes time to wait and watch and sometimes I'm doing other things.
Yesterday, about 5 pm, I watched a doe and 3 younger deer in the yard, and didn't go for the shot---each deer means skinning, quartering, butchering and packaging for the freezer---usually a day of labor, and I'm focusing on working on the greenhouse for what seems like it's likely to turn into a long and cold winter.... I'm also interviewing people for a new helper--the last 2 were worthless as tits on a boar....If'n other hunters don't get them first, I think i'll fill all the tags by mid december.

 

I guess you don't care as much about how many per year as you do about having the last 37 perfect shots!

 

Yeh, that's pretty much it.
I police and save my brass, and was cleaning out the drawer in which I had placed it and counted it up, so I have one number
from which to extrapolate.
Perfect shot-now we're getting into memory circuits-the "perfect shot" is when they fall where they stood---I remember 4 that managed to run about 20-50 yards (one to the north, 2 to the southeast, and one due east)---one I nicked the heart, 2 were double lunged, and one (she turned as I fired) went in the chest, through a lung, then tore out her guts---she made it about 60 yards before she dropped. She was just outside my zeroed KZ, and I had to aim a bit high. The farther they run the farther I have to drag them up to the shop, and I ain't young no more. All but one(north) ran down hill.
As/re how many per year:
If the trot-line fishing was good, and the chest-freezer is 1/2 full of catfish, then I don't need as much venison to fill it up.
I eat what I kill. So if the freezer fills up, I stop. The fishing sucked this summer---last winter was colder than normal, and the river froze deep--in the spring the shore was littered with dead flatheads and a few blues---I think the freeze wiped out most of the breeding population, so I expect bad fishing for a couple years going forward.

 

So you policed each single brass after you shot the 37 deer over the course of maybe 8-12 years. You also eat every deer you shoot, so you roughly eat about 3-5 deer per year, which stays cold in the freezer, all 3-5 of them, every year for 8-12 years.

So each year for roughly 8-12 years you policed about 3-5 brass and placed them in the drawer, and after 8-12 years your drawer had 37 of them there brass thingies.

 

yup
"brass thingies" that's cute
Almost all of the red meat I eat is venison.
I built a smoker and jerk some most years---the jerky rarely lasts past February---and it makes for a nice gift.
I do remember that the year we erected the framing for the greenhouse, I only shot one.(I had 5 tags that year)
We worked dawn to dusk trying to finish the framing before the snow.
http://imgur.com/a/5oy2F#0
http://imgur.com/a/5oy2F#1