Over the weekend I met the most wonderful couple. They had a new baby and had a lot of great ideas about nutrition and similar interests in the outdoors. He’s going back to Iraq in January.
“Oh, then you’ve got a little time,” I said.
What a stupid thing to say. It really eats me up to meet someone as neat as that and know that we (I) am sending them back into a war. Bush said that he wants permanent bases in Iraq.
He has no intention of leaving. We’re paying over $450,728,500,000 (I can’t even say that amount) on Bush’s war. Some 71,720 to 78,296 civilians have been killed; how to picture that? Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City filled to the max (Google it).
And we blame the Iraqis for having a civil war. Who wants them to be in a civil war? Mr. Bush does. Stay the course. Our soldiers dead, 3,774 (the bloodiest summer yet) and 27,767 wounded.
But all of them are wounded. You can’t go occupy a country with 71,000 people dead and how many injured and not be wounded by that.
You can’t leave home the third time, missing another year out of your life, and not be wounded by that; those left behind not knowing if you will come back and if you’ll be the same person when you do.
What news am I supposed to swallow about our great progress in Iraq? Make me believe it’s a good war cause I’ve got to be able to live with myself.
This letter was originally submitted to and published by the Leaf Chronicle, September 12, 2007.
Thanks for posting this in here, Christine.
The following letter was posted on the Leaf Chronicle blog site in response to several anti-soldier, pro Bush comments also posted. Reprinted with permission from the writer.
And they won’t sit down and shut up.