In my humble opinion. sir, you seem to be incapable of weeping, or at least feeling a smidgeon of sorrow, about much of anything. Well, maybe if your dog died.  But the death of our soldiers and Marines in Iraq, trapped in this monstrous, endless war, appear to disturb you not at all. If it does, perhaps you tell one of your advisors how you feel and let him do the crying for you.

I may be wrong, Mr. President, but that supercilious smile on your face, when you announce how proud you are of our troops in Iraq, suggests to me that you don’t care much about the suffering you turned loose on your fellow Americans and on this nation.

Well, let me tell you something, Mr. President. I presume that you are privy to the reports on our war dead that is increasing each day. And when you do, sir, I venture to say, that you view our war casualties as: statistics, flags on coffins, 21 gun salutes, and some bugler blowing taps. That’s all we ever know about the war. Because that’s all the information your administration allows the media to let us see. Or know.

But there is one thing about war that even you are unaware of, Mr. President, since you made sure that you yourself were never in one. And that is the personal misery, mental and physical horrors, the pain and suffering that each wounded soldier and Marine goes through, not as nameless, faceless statistics, but as human beings made of flesh and blood.

So hear me out, Mr. President, you are about to get acquainted with the “personal” side of the Iraq war, the petrifying, grim, pitiful side that is never seen or told to us by the media---and certainly not by the White House or the Pentagon.

Excerpts from “Iraq Vets Left in Physical and Mental Agony” by Aaron Glantz of the Electronic Iraq news source., is not very pleasant to read, but then nothing is pleasant to read about this war. Or any war.

In case no one told you, Mr. President, and you didn’t bother to ask, the dead body count is now over 3000.  But 150,000 veterans of the Iraq war who were wounded, many seriously and disabled for life, never gets much publicity. Not, I suppose, because only the dead-bodies counts, or flag-draped caskets are somehow “patriotic”, or counting the wounded is too arbitrary to be accurate---no, it’s because seeing battle casualties who are still alive are too disturbing to the senses at best, and too horrible to view, at worst.

Glantz reports that Dr. Ambascini just got back from Germany where he treated the worst of the war wounded. He said that a great many wounded soldiers are coming home with no arms or legs. Goodbye to running and playing ball.  The good doctor said he even had to amputate the genitals of one or two men every day. No more sexual intercourse ever again for virile young men is a special kind of terror.

And, Mr. President, I’d like you to read this chilling comment from Dr. Ambascini, and take your time reading it. “I walk into the operating room and the general surgeons are doing their work, and there is the body of this Navy SEAL, which is a physical specimen to behold. And his abdomen is open, they’re exploring both intestines. He’s missing both legs above the knee, one arm is blown off, and he’s got incisions on his thighs to relieve the pressure on the parts of the legs that are hopefully going to survive, and also genital injuries, and you just want to cry.”

Get that, Mr. President?  Cry. A tough, experienced surgeon almost driven to tears when he looks down at what’s left of this big, husky Navy man. And if he survives I doubt seriously whether this man will look at his stumps and missing arm and gloriously exclaim to the world that he is proud to have suffered like this for his country.

But, Mr. President, that’s just the physical side of this grim story. There is also the brain-damaged side of it that we hear almost nothing about.

Well, hear it is.  Pentagon records show that at least 12-per cent of Iraq veterans suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). That’s a fancy name for what we used to call “shell shock.” The brain rebels at all the ghastliness, the mind cracks, and the soldier becomes mentally disabled. Veterans for America reports that 70,000 of these cases go to the VA for mental health care. And some vets suffering from traumatic stress disorders get “special” treatment: the Pentagon allows commanders to redeploy them back to Iraq.

And then, Mr. President, there’s a little item called “Suicide by cop.”

This is a term used by the Army for dead veterans who found a “way out” of being sent back into battle. For instance, Army Reservist James Dean, who was suffering from PTSD, barricaded himself, with weapons, and threatened to kill himself. After an 11-hour standoff, Dean was shot by a police officer when he pointed a gun at another officer. Dean had already served 18 months in Afghanistan and became dangerously depressed when he was informed that his unit would be sent to Iraq on January 14.

The hidden horrors of this brutal, preemptive, unnecessary war, which the American public can only imagine, needed to be told; that’s why I’ve written this article. I admit I shed some tears as I wrote it. Some people may shed some tears as they read it.

General Sherman was right when he said, “War is hell.” He meant, I’m sure, the “human” side of it. And I was wondering if you. Mr. President, ever shed a few tears just thinking about that.

James T. Moore
http://jamestmoore.us/