Fourteen more US troops killed in Afghanistan: What are they dying for?

[IndianaGreen]

Army Specialist Pedro Millet

Fourteen more US troops killed in Afghanistan: What are they dying for?

31 August 2010

Among the bodies shipped back to the US through Dover Air Base in flag-draped coffins this past week was that of a 20-year-old from Elizabeth, New Jersey, Army Specialist Pedro Millet, who was killed by an improvised explosive device in southern Afghanistan.

“I feel like someone ripped my heart out. I have no heart. My baby is gone,” the soldier’s mother, Denise Meletiche, told reporters outside her home after making the painful journey from the base in Delaware. She said that her son had joined the Army without telling her, explaining only afterwards that he did it to get money to go to college. “I was against the Army,” she said. “I’m against war.”

The soldier’s stepfather said that Army recruiters had been allowed into Pedro’s high school and enticed him into joining the military. “We’re losing kids in a war, and what are they doing about it?” he said. “This is ridiculous.”

What can justify such human sacrifices? Obama, like Bush before him, has tried to frighten the American people into supporting this brutal war by claiming it is necessary to defeat terrorism. This is just as much a lie coming out of the Democratic president’s mouth as it was when uttered by his Republican predecessor.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/aug2010/pers-a31.shtml

Posted: Wednesday, 25 August 2010 5:17AM

Family of Elizabeth Native Killed in Afghanistan Speaks Out

"I was against the Army. I'm against war," Meletiche said. "It's so dangerous, but that was his choice and I had to respect that." Millet hoped to have his college education paid for through the G.I bill. "That was his major goal, to go for a few years and come out and go to work, and then the next step is college. I told him I'd work five jobs if I have to put him through college, but he doesn't have to go to the Army."

"I was overwhelmed when he made that decision," said George Salado, the Army Specialist's stepfather. Salado said Millet was enticed to enlist when military recruiters visited his high school, the Thomas A. Edison Career and Technical Academy, a part of Elizabeth High School. "I'm finding myself to be opposed to that practice as of late because I think they are acting too soon with the youth. I think I am going to do something about that."

A spokesman for the Elizabeth school district Don Goncalves said Millet was "an exemplary student, well-mannered and very respectful. We can only imagine the hurt the family feels."

Meletiche exploded in sorrow when recalling how her son surprised her with the news that he had enlisted. "He calls me from the airport telling me that he is going to the Army. I'm like, what do you mean? I don't want you to go to the Army. You are not going. He said, well I am already on the airplane, I'm sorry."

She said she would work to stop military recruiters from visiting high schools. "You know where my son was in Kandahar? Sleeping on the floor. They had him on the floor, sleeping on the floor! Looking for bombs under the ground with a metal detector," she cried. "All he had was a year and a half of training. He wasn't even trained enough to go to the most dangerous part of the war."

http://www.nj1015.com/Family-of-Elizabeth-Native-Killed-in-Afghanistan-S/7997457

Pedro Millet deserved a full and productive life at home, raising a family, and watching his children grow old. Millet, like countless others before him, was forced by economic conditions to enlist in the military, seduced by unscrupulous military recruiters having unlimited access to our children in the schools.

The children of the elites will never know want, and will never taste the sacrifices that young men and women like Pedro Millet had to go through. We have an obligation to the men and women in uniform, to end these senseless wars of imperial domination fought under the pretext of fighting terrorism. Our politicians must be held accountable, even criminally, for plunging our nation into wars of choice.

RIP to Pedro's family. Stop the war!

[readmoreoften]

1. They're dying for 3 years of free college.

That's the kicker. The GI bill is 3 years now. You don't even get enough for the Bachelors.

[another saigon]

2. what a nightmare

:(

[FiveGoodMen]

3. Well, some god damned son of a bitch decided they should be there

What's his name again?

[Melissa G]

4. The pipeline that Dick Cheney told them we would bomb them for

the summer before we did.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

5. Terribly sad and infuriating at the same time.

[democrank]

6. Bring the troops home and

replace them with the war-loving, war-funding politicians and their enablers.

[classysassy]

7. The Natives are getting restless

Will this turn into Viet Nam 2 ? Its time for the return of the draft and the Hippies,time to let Washington know we are tired of blood for oil policies our tax dollars ending up in the pockets of the arms merchants.All Americans opposed to the senseless wars that take the lives of the young and fatten the bank accounts of the wealthy warmongers that refuse to let their sons and daughter get killed and maimed in their wars for profit.