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"In July 2006, an improvised explosive device hit Dominguez's unit in Iraq, causing their armored tank to explode and leaving Dominguez with severe burns on 82 percent of his body.
"It was about establishing Democracy"
Dominguez, then 22, lost part of both of his legs, his left ear, part of his lower lip and parts of his eyelids."
"It was about establishing Democracy"
When U.S. inspectors failed to turn up any evidence of an Iraqi program to build weapons of mass destruction of any kind, the administration’s justification for war and occupation shifted to a new focus: establishing democracy in Iraq, which would then spread to the rest of the Middle East. The administration also said that removing Saddam Hussein from power was justification enough.
Democracy, however, didn’t take hold. Instead, an insurgency broke out. Sunni and Shiite militants attacked U.S. and coalition troops with increasing frequency and effectiveness. Then civil war broke out between Sunni and Shiite militants."
"And all the guys who died all the five million or seven million or ten million who
went out and died to make the world safe for democracy to make the world safe
for words without meaning how did they feel about it just before they died? How
did they feel as they watched their blood pump out into the mud? How did they
feel when the gas hit their lungs and began eating them all away? How did they feel
as they lay crazed in hospitals and looked death straight in the face and saw him
come and take them? The thing they were fighting for was important enough to
die for then it was also important enough for them to be thinking about it in the last
minutes of their lives. That stood to reason. Life is awfully important so if you've
given it away you'd ought to think with all your mind in the last moments of your
life about the thing you traded it for. So did all those kids die thinking of
democracy and freedom and liberty and honor and the safety of the home and the
stars and stripes forever?
"You're goddamn right they didn't.
"They died crying in their minds like little babies. They forgot the thing they were
fighting for the things they were dying for. They thought about things a man can
understand. They died yearning for the face of a friend. They died whimpering for
the voice of a mother a father a wife a child They died with their hearts sick for
one more look at the place where they were born please god just one more look.
They died moaning and sighing for life. They knew what was important They knew
that life was everything and they died with screams and sobs. They died with only
one thought in their minds and that was I want to live I want to live I want to live."
"Last month Associated Press reported the case of Jeffrey Lucey, a 23-year-old Marine who suffered from serious depression and became dependent on alcohol after returning from Iraq in July 2003. On Christmas Eve he told his sister how he had been ordered to shoot two unarmed Iraqi soldiers. “He took off two dog tags around his neck, then threw them at me and said, ‘Don’t you understand? Your brother is a murderer,’” she recalled. Lucey killed himself in June."
....."Somebody tapped you on the shoulder and said 'come along son we're going to
war.' So you went...
..."But why? In any other deal even like buying a car or running an errand you had
the right to say what's there in it for me? Otherwise you'd be buying bad cars for
too much money or running errands for fools and starving to death. It was a kind of
duty you owed yourself that when anybody said come on son do this or do that you
should stand up and say look mister why should I do this for who am I doing it and
what am I going to get out of it in the end? But when a guy comes along and says
here come with me and risk your life and maybe die or be crippled why then
you've got no rights. You haven't even the right to say yes or no or I'll think it over.
There are plenty of laws to protect guys' money even in war time but there's
nothing on the books says a man's life's his own."
"It Was About Restoring Security and Decency"
"As violence and American casualties escalated and Iraqi democracy increasingly looked like an elusive pipe dream, the administration’s justification for staying in Iraq shifted yet again. The objective became restoring calm and security to Iraq and preventing a genocidal civil war between Sunnis and Shiites."
"Destabilized and dislocated, Iraq proved a fertile ground for terrorist activity by the group that calls itself al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia. The terror group’s activity proved to be a self-fulfilling prophesy that the administration could use to strengthen its case not only for remaining in Iraq, but escalating it's military presence there. On the fifth anniversary of the war in spring 2008, however, the objective of remaining in Iraq was not clearer than it had been five years earlier."
"And take decency. Everybody said America was fighting a war for the triumph of
decency. But whose idea of decency? And decency for who? Speak up and tell us
what decency is. Tell us how much better a decent dead man feels that an indecent
live one. Make a comparison there in facts like houses and tables. Make it in words
we can understand. And don't talk about honor. The honor of a Chinese or an
Englishman or an African negro or an American or a Mexican? Please all you guys
who want to fight to preserve our honor let us know what the hell honor is. Is it
American honor for the whole world we're fighting for? Maybe the world doesn't
like it. Maybe the South Sea Islanders like their honor better."
"NO ROOM IN ARMY WARD FOR CPL NICK It was nine days before Christmas when a bomb left Corporal Nicholas Gilliver close to death. He was travelling in an armoured Land Rover in Basra when the device detonated. He and his driver took the full force of the blast. The next thing Nicholas, 31, knew he was in intensive care at Selly Oak Hospital, Birmingham. Both his legs were badly hurt and his head and torso had shrapnel wounds. But it was what happened after he had recovered sufficiently to be moved to a general ward which left his close friends angry. Due to bed shortages, he was put in a civilian mixed ward - instead of the dedicated military one.Next to him were two frail and infirm elderly women and an elderly man. Last night a close friend said: "Nicholas was a mass of tubes and very poorly. Yet you'd get people who are anti-war criticising him. So not only did he almost lay down his life for his country, he then had to justify himself as he fought to survive. It was a dreadful situation to be in - no soldier should have to put up with that." But worse was to come. After Christmas, Nicholas, who had been on a second tour of duty in Iraq, developed a serious infection. Bacteria from the soil in Iraq had entered his blood stream from the explosion. He had to go to a single-room isolation ward so he didn't pass on the disease. His friend added: "The room was a disgrace - just eight metres square. The TV didn't work, nor did the phone. His clothes were piled in a corner. "His room was near the ward entrance. The door was left open and everyone would gawp at him. "It was extremely upsetting. Nicholas put his life on the line for his country - he deserved better treatment. He needed specialist care from people who really understood the trauma he was going through." Last night Nicholas's father Michael, who lives near Doncaster, said: "We are extremely proud of Nicholas's Army service. He was injured doing his duty." He is now out of his isolation ward but still in hospital. However, the current head of British Armed Forces, Sir Jock Stirrup, claimed medical care was better for troops in NHS hospitals than in specialist military hospitals. He added: "Care is best provided in a large NHS hospital. The number of in-patients at any one time is quite small and their injuries require different types of treatment. Although there are insufficient military casualties to fill a ward with any one type of injury, we can do much to create and sustain within NHS hospitals the kind of military environment and ethos that our people need."Sunday Mirror
"You can always hear the people who are willing to sacrifice somebody else's life.
They're plenty loud and they talk all the time. You can find them in churches and
schools and newspapers and legislatures and congress. That's their business. They
sound wonderful. Death before dishonor. This ground sanctified by blood. These
men who died so gloriously. They shall not have died in vain. Our noble dead."
"People say to me, "When I see the flag my eyes fill with tears."
"Yeah. Mine too."--Dalton Trumbo
(excerpts from "Johnny Got His Gun", Dalton Trumbo)