last june, jeffrey lucey, a us soldier recently returned from iraq, killed himself, hung himself in the cellar of his parents' house with a hose. "the dog tags of two iraqi prisoners that he said he was forced to shoot unarmed, lay on his bed." those dog tags, he'd brought home with him, had worn them after being ordered to shoot them. his therapist told his father "he never wore those as trophies. he wore them as a symbol of honor to those men."
now, does this get big news coverage? no. gotta go to democracy now to read the interview with his parents. ran a search, and apparently a chicago tribune article made brief mention of his suicide, but without much background
"at the close of 2003, u.s. commanders put the number of insurgents [in iraq] at 5,000. earlier this month, gen. mohammed abdullah shahwani, the director of the iraqi intelligence service, said there are 200,000 insurgents, including at least 40,000 hard-core fighters. the rest, he said, are part-time fighters and supporters who provide food, shelter, funds and intelligence."
200,000 insurgents
keep in mind, us troops in iraq this month, according to the brookings institution's iraq index is only 150,000. sure, iraqi security forces are being trained, but aren't they just the group caught in the middle? the key here is we're outnumbered and unwanted... and, still we torture and shoot unarmed iraqis, traumatizing some of our own in the process
we create vicious animals or tramua victims of our own men. what happens when the war actually ends, when the iraq vets start trying to slip back into american society? people kept saying last summer that we needed to stop bringing up vietnam, it's been thirty years, let's leave that subject alone. but, clearly, no one learned anything from any of it, so maybe we should bring it up more, not less. maybe if john kerry had stopped playing the part of the high class massachusetts liberal he is now and embraced the antiwar, atrocity-admitting liberal he was a few decades ago, he could have had some impact, even if he still lost the damn election
we all know war is hell. at least, we pretend we know that. we say we don't need to see the dead bodies, don't need to watch the destruction on a personal level to know that war is hell. but, if we don't watch all the horror of it, if we don't particpate more directly (that is, tracking the details, the deaths, the injuries, the violence, rather than just checking brief news reports on whether we've won yet) then how will we be prepared to deal with the demons that come home with our troops?
of course, how many of us believe we're living in the "end times" and these troops won't necessarily ever be coming home, and even if they do, christ will show up and make it all better, a kiss on each wound and all the pain is gone?
too many, i'd say
too many christians waiting on the hollywood ending