If you ever doubt the magnitude of the crime -- "The Casualty"

[LawDem]

"They could see at once that the hemmit had hit a mine; the enormous right front wheel was gone and the cab was crumpled. Blood, shiny oil, and bright-green engine coolant made a mess on the tarmac. Soldiers had ringed the scene and were pointing their rifles into the desert; mine strikes are frequently overtures to ambush. Keisha Duff had been thrown clear of the driver’s seat and was being rolled onto a stretcher. Jagged chunks of the cab were embedded in her arm, and she had a bad burn under her flak jacket. Screams echoed from the hemmit’s twisted cab; Blohm glanced inside. “Oh, shit,” he remembers thinking. “It’s my friend.” In addition to having to duck and return fire while administering aid, combat medics, unlike their civilian counterparts, often find themselves wrist-deep in the hot ruined flesh of their best friends."


http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040308fa_fact1

[librechik]

1. God forgive us

but we tried to stop them.

[Hand]

2. When I was that age...

Early 20's, full of ideas and inspirations, looking forward to life in all its promise and variety... that's a precious time.

Bam. Gone. Wrecked. All for oil and money--someone else's oil, someone else's money. Greedy old men's oil, stupid old men's money. :cry:

Chimpy should spend the rest of his useless life looking these kids in the eye--kids whose bodies and lives were blown apart in his obscene, infantile folly. Then he should burn in hell forever.

And forever is a long, long time... :grr:

[NewYorkerfromMass]

3. Pretty hard reading there

the individual anecodotes are chilling:

"At Walter Reed, Phil Bauer, a strapping cavalry scout from upstate New York, had described being on a Chinook helicopter that was shot down on November 2nd, killing fifteen soldiers on their way to a short leave. When he came to, he said, he was pinned atop the open-eyed corpse of a woman soldier to whom he’d just given a piece of gum. His leg was jammed beneath the burning roof of the Chinook, and he had to lie there, without morphine, for two hours while a “jaws of life” apparatus was flown in from Tikrit...."

[Blue_Tires]

4. chilling...

should be required reading for the more gung-ho types

[jjanpundt]

5. Absolutely chilling reading

I'm saving this article for my nephew in case he shows any interest in joining the military. He's 15 and currently has zero interest but just in case...