black…MYstory

Do you remember these words from 4 years ago today? (transcript):

Thank you all very much. Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. (Applause.) And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country.

It was the ultimate publicity stunt, complete with a huge banner stating “Mission Accomplished”. I had been against the war from the beginning because I did not believe the rationale(s) employed for being there but, I was hopeful that this would be the end and our military would be coming home soon. But, just over one week later, something happened that made me realize that this war was not over.

I was watching the news when I saw that Pfc. Marlin T. Rockhold of Hamilton, Ohio had been killed by a sniper’s bullet on May 8, 2003 while directing traffic on a bridge in Baghdad. I remember him mostly as a kid with a silly sense of humor who was the nephew of one of my best friends. I didn’t realize that this silly kid had grown into a fine, responsible young man who adopted the daughter of the woman he married. You see, my old neighborhood is in one of those towns across America where the factories have closed down. So, if you don’t have a college degree, your employment opportunities are somewhat limited. In fact, I couldn’t tell you the number of guys I went to high school with who ending up selling dope. However, Marlin’s family would have none of that and, despite not having a lot of money, they have a lot of class and strong religious beliefs that helped their children avoid the traps that caught up a lot of people around them.

This is what hurt me the most about seeing this. This young man should have been home with his wife and child, looking forward to a life together. Instead, he was sent to fight and occupy a country over what I see as part Bush family vendetta/part oil deal.

Today, there are over 3300 U.S. families and untold thousands of Iraqi families who have had to mourn the losses of their loved ones. Some feel like I feel, some don’t but I do wonder if, 4 years in, most of us now see that those guiding this war never had any sense of direction and are just trying to run out the clock so they can blame the next group in power.

We have to ask, how much longer do we have to be in Iraq before we realize that more good people, like Marlin Rockhold, have to lose their lives doing an honorable thing for dishonorable people?

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