2,000 US TROOPS DEAD IN IRAQ: ONE SURVIVOR TELLS HIS STORY

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http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/printer_102805N.shtml

 

2,000 US Troops Dead in Iraq: One Survivor Tells His Story

By Ryan Parry

The Daily Mirror UK

Thursday 27 October 2005

 

" I went to fight in Iraq to get revenge for 9/11... I found out Bush

had led us into a war that was immoral and totally wrong... "

- IVAW Member, Tomas Young

 

 

 

Brave Tomas Young saw it as his patriotic duty to join the Army

three days after 9/11. Tomas, 25, wanted revenge on the terrorists

who murdered nearly 2,750 people in the Twin Towers. But on his first

mission in Iraq - and before he had fired a single bullet in anger -

he was left paralysed from the chest down after being shot in an

ambush.

 

Now his anguish at never being able to walk again has turned to

anger that he and thousands of others are being sent to fight an

immoral war for George Bush. As America this week mourned its 2000th

victim of the war, Tomas said: " I joined the Army to exact some sort

of retribution on what happened to us, whether it be going to find

Osama bin Laden or to get al-Qaeda. " I joined to get back for what

happened. Nothing more, nothing less. But so far there have been

2,000 dead American soldiers and some 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians.

 

" That's certainly a lot more than we lost on September 11. What

has happened in Iraq is wrong. " Tomas, now confined to a wheelchair,

is bitter that his Government's lies got him to enroll. And he is

frustrated Mr Bush will not listen to the American public and

withdraw the troops. He said: " From the start I didn't see a

connection between Iraq and 9/11, but when Bush first said, 'Weapons

of mass destruction', I bought into that a bit.

 

" However, when that reason became more and more bulls**t I

started to fall off the bandwagon. " It became clear they didn't have

any strong connection and that's when I started to snap. "

 

The young Army specialist is contemptuous of his President's

attempts to justify the conflict. " Bush kept coming up with reason

after reason that was proving to be wrong, " Tomas said. " It reminded

me of when I was naughty as a kid.

 

" Mom would find out my first excuse wasn't true, so I'd make up a

second and third until I would finally admit what I'd done and take

my whupping. " His opposition to the war hardened soon after he was

sent to Iraq with the 2nd Battalion 5th Cavalry regiment in March

2004. The soldier, of Kansas City, Missouri, recalled: " I was

saying, 'See these oil fires? This is why we're here, guys. We're not

defending freedom'. I realised my reasons for joining were being

twisted. "

 

The day that would alter his life forever came on April 4. He and

his colleagues were sent to guard a rescue mission in Baghdad's Sadr

City district. He found himself one of 25 troops crammed into a truck

meant to hold 18. Tomas said: " The truck was beaten up. It was

supposed to have a canvas cover and armour on the sides. It didn't

have either. Space was so tight that I had my legs folded and was

lying on my back so more people could get in. I was meant to have my

M16 aiming off the side but I couldn't get enough room to pivot it

around and shoot if I needed to. "

 

Although the rescue mission went smoothly, his truck later came

under attack from rooftop snipers armed with AK47s. Tomas said: " They

opened fire and myself and three or four others got shot. It was like

shooting fish in a barrel. "

 

He was hit under the shoulder blade and the bullet severed his

spinal cord, paralysing him instantly. " I went numb, " he recalled. " I

dropped my M16 and my fingertips were tingling. It was like a shock

through my body. I went rigid. I remember looking at my hands and

trying to will them to grab my M16, but couldn't get them to move. I

tried to yell but all I could get out was a horse-whisper. " A second

shot tore into his knee. He scarcely felt it. Tomas was eventually

airlifted to hospitals in Kuwait, Germany and, finally, Washington

DC. He was constantly sedated and recalls little. But he remembers

the emotional moment he came round and saw his mother, Cathy Smith.

 

" I'm a mommy's boy, " he admitted. " I don't care how tough you

are, when you see your mom after what I've been through you start to

cry. " Last Saturday, Staff Sgt George Alexander, 34, became the

2,000th US soldier killed in the conflict. He had been hit by a

roadside bomb in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, five days

earlier.

 

The death was viewed as a grim landmark by America's growing anti-

war movement. Now Tomas is determined to ensure it is one of the

last. He is a member of the Iraq Veterans Against the War movement

and recently joined leading activist Cindy Sheehan at a demo outside

Mr Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas. Her son Casey, 24, was killed in

Baghdad on the same day Tomas was hit.

 

Tomas and wife Brie, 24, are now trying to look to the future and

are thinking of having IVF treatment to start a family. But he

remains angry about the way the war changed his life. And he called

on Mr Bush to stop others suffering in the same way. " I'd probably be

a little bitter even if the war was just, " he confessed. " But the

fact that I'm in this situation, compounded with the fact we went to

an immoral war, makes it harder to accept.

 

" Bush led us into something that was wrong. He now needs to lead

us out. "