Dead Soldier's Dad: 'Bush Policy . . . Makes Our Troops Sitting Ducks'

[bigtree]

A Life, Wasted
Let's Stop This War Before More Heroes Are Killed

By Paul E. Schroeder (Son Killed in Iraq)

Tuesday, January 3, 2006; Page A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/02/AR2006010200974.html

Early on Aug. 3, 2005, we heard that 14 Marines had been killed in Haditha, Iraq. Our son, Lance Cpl. Edward "Augie" Schroeder II, was stationed there. At 10:45 a.m. two Marines showed up at our door. After collecting himself for what was clearly painful duty, the lieutenant colonel said, "Your son is a true American hero."

>>>>Since August we have witnessed growing opposition to the Iraq war, but it is often whispered, hands covering mouths, as if it is dangerous to speak too loudly. Others discuss the never-ending cycle of death in places such as Haditha in academic and sometimes clinical fashion, as in "the increasing lethality of improvised explosive devices."

>>>>I am outraged at what I see as the cause of his death. For nearly three years, the Bush administration has pursued a policy that makes our troops sitting ducks. While Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that our policy is to "clear, hold and build" Iraqi towns, there aren't enough troops to do that.

>>>>In our last conversation, Augie complained that the cost in lives to clear insurgents was "less and less worth it," because Marines have to keep coming back to clear the same places. Marine commanders in the field say the same thing. Without sufficient troops, they can't hold the towns. Augie was killed on his fifth mission to clear Haditha.

rest of father's story here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/02/AR2006010200974.html

[babylonsister]

1. Rec'd. We need to hear and listen to this dad and his son! nt

[gratuitous]

2. "Your son is a true American hero"

For what? Killing (although I hope not personally) and dying for an illegal occupation? I'm glad I don't have any sons or daughters to grind up in the American wehrmacht. The lieutenant colonel who came to my door and mouthed such an empty platitude on the death of my child would get kicked square in the nads.

If his duty is clearly that painful, the unnamed lieutenant colonel should resign his commission, quit the military, and get involved with IVAW, Citizen Soldier, or some other such group. Instead, he keeps drawing a paycheck and carrying out this odious duty, perpetuating a lie that there's something "heroic" about what our military is doing in Iraq.