I can't face killing children in Iraq, said suicide soldier

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=402193&in_page_id=1770&in_a_source=

A teenage soldier killed himself before his first tour of duty in Iraq because he was told he might have to shoot suspected child suicide bombers.

Jason Chelsea, 19, who served with the Kings Lancaster Regiment, told his mother that senior officers warned him during special training that Iraqi insurgents used children as young as two as bombers.

The teenager, who had a two-year-old nephew, took an overdose of paracetamol while home on leave and died of liver failure five days later.

As he lay dying in St James' Hospital, Leeds, he told his parents that he could not face returning to his barracks and then going to Iraq.

[wtmusic]

1. How many American tragedies like this

are buried by our media?

[MnFats]

2. Nineteen years old. A child. Should have been home with his folks.

what an enormous sin we have committed by sending babies into the maw of that vicious hell.

[RagAss]

11. What do you mean We ?????...I didn't send anyone to that fictitious

war....

[liberalhistorian]

3. (Right wingnut mode) Well,

what a coward, unwilling to stand up and do what's necessary to defend and protect his great country that gave him so much! He signed up himself, he should have damn well known he'd have to blow little kids away, it's all just a part of war. We don't need kids like this in our military or country, anyway, killing kids is just a part of war and we don't need willy-nilly wimps who can't get the job done. His parents should be ashamed of themselves for raising such a liberal panty-waist coward.

(Back to sane, normal mode) You just know that's what too many of the hateful wingnuts are thinking and will even be saying. That poor kid and his parents, what a horrible thing for them to have to deal with. Thoughts and prayers with them and with the soldier. I hope he's found peace now.

This apparently happened in England, does anyone know if they have a draft or a volunteer military like ours?

[Imagevision]

4. Twenty-two US troops committed suicide in Iraq last year >

Report: Suicidal troops sent into combat
U.S. military violated own rules on mentally ill troops.

HARTFORD, Conn. - U.S. military troops with severe psychological problems have been sent to Iraq or kept in combat, even when superiors have been aware of signs of mental illness, a newspaper reported for Sunday editions.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12777489/

[Greeby]

5. Sad as all hell

If any soldier likely to go to Iraq were to listen to me, I'd tell em that, out of all their options, Bush and Blair want them to die, so killing themselves would be kind of like eliminating the middleman

[CollegeDUer]

6. Horrible

nt

[TahitiNut]

7. How's that "volunteer" military working out for you, Rummy?

Bastards! :grr:

We had to deal with this prospect/realization in Viet Nam. Every guy dealt with it differently.

[PaDem]

8. Are the freepers throwing this kid..........

under the bus yet? But of chickenhawks over there.

[lgn19087]

9. What a tradgedy

I sympathize completely with him. I just wish he wouldn't have committed suicide. How can one look themselves in the mirror each morning, knowing that their superiors will force them to kill what are really no more than misguided children. Children who are probably even younger than him? I couldn't imagine. Having to shoot a young, pretty girl that under other circumstances I would have thought about asking out on a date, just because she's "suspected" of being a suicide bomber.

Killing is never the answer.

[chefgirl]

10. I forget who said it

Theres an old quote that has stayed with me since the day I first heard it, and I'm only sorry I can't remember who first said it, but:

"Dying for your country is not the worst that can be asked of you. Killing for it is."

Such a sad story. He was no more than a child, himself.

-chef-