Young Associates Back From Iraq Struggle With Memories, Question War

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.nylawyer.com/news/04/09/092904j.html

Nightmares haunt Jason N. Thelen four times a week. When he's awake, he struggles with memory and concentration problems.

Allen R. Vaught still deals with pain from where his back snapped in four places. He, too, battles memory problems.

Both men -- former Army captains who returned home recently from fighting in Iraq -- not only share symptoms, they share the cause: They nearly were killed while together on a mission.

<snip>

In the long months they served in Iraq before the ambush, they dodged AK-47 fire, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades that came screaming out of minarets; endured endless days of 130-degree heat and months without showers; and drove Humvees through streets flooded with a foot-and-a-half of raw sewage. They say they waited in vain for Uncle Sam to provide radios so convoy vehicles could communicate; and they received body armor late — and then it was too small. The Army tasked them with teaching citizens of the former dictatorship about democracy, but many Iraqis just wanted them to leave. Their experiences left them deeply disillusioned about the possibility of successful societal transformation in the former dictatorship. "They will never be an American-style democracy," Thelen says.

Vaught adds, "I don't want another American to die for something that's probably not going to work."

[LibertyorDeath]

1. "They will never be an American-style democracy,"

It's pathetic that they have to go there & live through the hell they did to arrive at a conclusion so fucking obvious to most.

[yellowcanine]

2. More chinks in the "Military supports Bush" armor. I do think there are

going to be some unpleasant surprises for Mr. Bush in November in the military vote - particularly the National Guard and Reserves.

[phantom power]

3. It's sad, how every generation needs to re-learn the horror of war.

We're supposed to be the one animal capable of passing this sort of lesson on from generation to generation, but in reality we fail.

[bluedeminredstate]

4. So very sad.

They probably will never be the same even after time puts some space between their experiences and "normal" life.
How many of these traumatized soldiers are going to come home and be expected to resume their old lives? How will they ever get over this? What seems so devastating is knowing that what they are/were doing was so screwed up - radios, armor, etc. - and futile: 21 year old kids teaching Democracy to people who don't want them there. All the while their brethren are dying...
:cry:

[llmart]

5. Who says this isn't VietNam all over again?

PTSD anyone???

[saigon68]

7. Oh its PTSD all right-- the night sweats, loss of sleep

Those cheerleaders who started this should all be volunteering to go but like Cheney and Wolfman they have "OTHER PRIORITIES"

[llmart]

9. I got into a "discussion" today.....

with a 27-year old guy who is all pro-Iraq war, but when I finally challenged him to go enlist - sign up if he thinks it was a good thing to start a war with Iraq - he got irate and very uncomfortable about it saying that he was "too old to enlist." I told him there were guys in their 50's in Iraq (the one who died the other day being a perfect example)so why would the military turn him down? I also told him that I was never in VietNam, but I am of the VietNam generation and saw my friends, family, and sister go to VietNam and if they were lucky enough to come back they have fought the demons of that war for the past 35 years. My sister was a USO employee and she came back a different person and has NEVER been the same. That war took my real sister from me.

[saigon68]

10. Chicken Hawks

There is a website that lists them all-- The politicians that is.

There are a few whack job Vets out there too. Guys like Bud Day Bush puppet and medal of honor winner, who want to RE-Invade the Nam and kick some gook and Zipper-head ass.

Its a fucked up world. Sorry about your sister--- I fully understand.

[UpInArms]

6. how can anyone impart "democracy" at the end of a gun,

or the fall of a bomb?

Doesn't work, never has, never will.

[The_Casual_Observer]

8. These dupes were doing the "democracy thing"

all the while, cheney is stealing the oil.