War Widow's Lament: 'He Died for Money'

[NNN0LHI]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&ncid=716&e=2&u=/ap/20040605/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

VINKIVTSI, Ukraine -- Irina Zlochevskaya is 19 years old, and a widow. They brought her husband's corpse home to her on May Day. Along with the body in American-issue camouflage came a new DVD player he had bought, a roll of film -- undeveloped -- and a death certificate from the Ukrainian Defense Ministry.

The cause of death was left blank.

But his young wife believes she knows why Yaroslav Zlochevsky died in the Iraq war launched by the faraway American superpower. Officially, she has been told he was killed in an ambush near the Iraqi city of Kut, his legs and one arm torn off his body. On the news, she heard a Communist Party official say he died "in the interests of an alien empire."

In reality, she said, "he died for money." snip

more

[saigon68]

1. Ashes to ashes Dust to dust---

In a true ass kicking contest--- there is no room for a one legged man.

[leesa]

2. Sad. I hope she develops the film. Most soldiers die for money.

It's not their fault but it is the sad truth. They are warriors for corporate America's desires.

[soup]

3. She did develop it. A little more from the article

if you can stand it -

>snip<
The abandoned child of an alcoholic raised in an orphanage, Zlochevsky had tried, and failed, to continue his education after high school. He had tried, and failed, to find work in the big city, away from the poverty of the grim hamlet in western Ukraine where the young couple lived, six people crammed into her family's sour-smelling apartment.

At 23, he finally found a job.

For $670 a month, he signed up to serve in Iraq, part of Ukraine's 1,650-member military contribution to the U.S.-led occupation. He arrived in Iraq in late February after telling his family he would be a peacekeeper, handing out humanitarian aid. "He had no idea it's a real war there," said his wife. "No idea at all."

>snip<
She has developed the film that came back with Zlochevsky's body and put the pictures in an album. In one photo, he is shown wielding his machine gun on top of an armored personnel carrier. In another, he is sitting in his underwear at a table with his friends, drinking a toast. At the end of the album are other pictures, of her at his funeral, dressed in black, holding a picture of Yaroslav.

----
I've sat here trying, but there's just nothing I can say.