The media ought to ponder this question anew, in the wake of a Republican senator's explanation for why he has turned on the war: Military families now want U.S. troops out of Iraq.By Greg Mitchell
(July 07, 2007) -- This week, in all the press reports on the growing (if so far polite) revolt by conservative Republicans in Congress against current Bush policy on Iraq, what struck me the most was an explanation by Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico.
Now, many might say that the real, and only, reason for Domenici finally seeing the light on the need for a pullback in Iraq was simply one short group of numbers: 2008. He is up for re-election next year. So are many of the other GOP hawks.
But let's give the man the benefit of a doubt, and take the following at face value. Speaking to reporters from Albuquerque on Thursday, Domenici said his change of heart came after recent conversations with families of New Mexico soldiers killed in Iraq.
Normally, such families have argued for the U.S. to stay in Iraq and accomplish something so that their loved ones did not "die in vain" -- at least according to reports by the president and many other offiicals who meet them. But now Domenici reveals that many are asking him to do more to save those still serving in Iraq.
“I heard nothing like that a couple of years ago,” he said. “I think that’s the result of this war dragging on almost indefinitely.”
A more profound shift could hardly be imagined. It means the media should re-examine a familiar phrase that I, literally, grew up with. They ought to update John Kerry’s famous question in 1971, as a Vietnam veterans’ leader, “How do you ask someone to be the last American soldier to die for a mistake?”
Perhaps it would be helpful to ask: Well, who WAS the last soldier to die for the Vietnam mistake?
To my surprise, with a little research, I discovered that there is a consensus on who that individual was. We’ll get to his name in a moment, but what’s most relevant is that he died almost five years after that “mistake” was widely acknowledged. How many will die from now until the last American perishes in Iraq? Gallup and other polls show that about 6 in 10 Americans have already labeled the Iraq invasion a "mistake."
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Now, who was that last American to die in Vietnam?
According to Arlington National Cemetery, and numerous other sources, he was Army Col. William B. Nolde, a 43-year-old father of five. He was killed Jan. 27, 1973, near An Loc – just 11 hours before the U.S. signed the Paris Peace Accords -- when an artillery shell exploded nearby.
This is how Time magazine reported it the following week: “The last hours of the Viet Nam War took a cruel human toll. Communist and South Vietnamese casualties ran into the thousands. Four U.S. airmen joined the missing-in-action list when their two aircraft were downed on the last day. Another four Americans were known to have been killed—including Lieut. Colonel William B. Nolde, 43, of Mt. Pleasant, Mich., who was cut down in an artillery barrage at An Loc only eleven hours before the ceasefire. He was the 45,941st American to have died by enemy action in Viet Nam since 1961.”
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