A letter from an ex-Marine angry about people’s ignorant attitudes regarding the war in Iraq.
You fuckers and that god-damn lying sack of shit they call a president are the reason my husband will never see his baby and my kid will never meet his dad.
And you know what the most fucked up thing about this Iraq shit is? They don’t want us there. They’re not happy we came and they want us out NOW. We fucked up their lives even worse than they already were and they’re pissed off. We didn’t help them and we’re not helping them now. That’s what our soldiers are dying for.
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If they were really concerned about supporting the troops, they’d bring them home so their families wouldn’t have to cry at a graveside and explain to their children why mommy or daddy isn’t coming home. Because you can’t explain it. We’re not fighting for our country, we’re not fighting for the good of Iraq’s people, we’re fighting for Bush’s personal agenda.
Read it. Nothing I can say will do it justice.
She is of course correct, but one wonders why it took the death of her husband to figure it out.
She left the service six months ago. If memory serves me correctly, the standard enlistment period for the Marines is three years. This means that she joined (or reenlisted) at the end of 2003 (assuming she did not get an early discharge).
At the end of 2003 it was becoming clear that the reasons for going to war were a lie, that the Iraqi people did not want the US there and that the insurgency was picking up steam.
Anyone with their eyes open knew, or could have found out, what was happening. She choose to enlist under those conditions, she choose to kill (or help kill, if she served in a support role) Iraqi civilians. So did her husband. I cannot find sympathy for her.
Additionally, she points out that her father served in Vietnam. Then she notes that nothing has changed. Wrong. Her father was probably a conscript, facing heavy penalties for refusing to serve. She volunteered of her own free will.
Anyone who is in the US military today is a criminal. There are actively furthering an illegal and criminal war. They deserve no better than what they are inflicting on the Iraqi people.
PS, you need a “preview” option.
I’m personally not surprised that people react only when reality slaps them in the face, but it might be that she realized it before, but didn’t lash out until now.
What I actually found most interesting about the letter is that she states she won’t teach her son that his father died because of the lies and scheming of the U.S. government and will instead tell him he died being a hero. Hardly a way to teach future generations about how putting in power the same kind of bastards that sent their fathers to murder countless people and be murdered themselves gets you in this mess.