Col. Patrick Lang posted a moving diary today called In Memoriam – CPT Christopher Petty FA regarding the tragic death of young soldier in Iraq who was the son of one of his friends.
The man’s father wrote these words to Col. Lang in explanation of why his son had volunteered to return to Iraq for a second tour of duty.
The key words here as far as I am concerned are “…despite his frustrations with the army and a full awareness of what was right and wrong about Iraq…”
Read on for my response.
May God damn the souls of those who sent this good man there to die in an ignoble cause.
May they rot in hell for all eternity.
We have not fought in a valid war since W.W. II.
How many tens of thousands of American lives will be lost…as Col. Lang says, the best and the bravest of us on some levels, many of them…in service to the absurd idea that we deserve more than the lot that is granted to the “inferior races”?
The “others”.
How many more?
How many literally millions of American lives will be forever shadowed by the vain deaths of their loved ones?
How many millions of MUSLIMS will have been killed in this foolish, short-sighted and criminal war before we come to our senses?
Col. Lang ends his post with the words “Pro Patria“.
Wilfred Owen’s famous poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” (He was a young English poet who fought in the infantry during W.W.I and was killed in battle in 1918.) closes with these lines:
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.
“Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” – It is sweet and right to die for your country.
He knew.
Too late.
It IS “sweet and right” to die for your country.
For your family, for your real friends and allies.
For the ideas of human evolution and human freedom.
But it is NOT sweet and right to die at the behest of a bunch of hustlers, racists and cowards who are simply out for all they can grab at any cost to anyone but themselves.
And that is precisely why this good man died.
I would die going over the ridge with a smile on my face if it was for the defense my family, and by extension if it was truly for the defense of my country.
But THIS!!!???
Vietnam?
And all the smaller wars of colonial aggression that we have waged over the last 40 years?
So that we can drive gas guzzling SUVs and become the most physically obese nation ever to walk the earth?
Not a CHANCE!!!
I am sorry for this man, for his family and friends, and for ALL of those whose lives have been ended or ruined by this war.
But pro patria uber alles?
I think not.
I really cannot conceive of how the many honorable fighting men and women of this nation can resist the impulse to turn their guns on these criminals and frog march the lot of them out of the White House and onto the gallows.
I cannot.
THAT would be “Pro Patria“.
This is just useless, criminal and vain slaughter.
I do not understand, anymore…
What sustains this kind of evil in the world?
I simply cannot understand.
Let us pray.
AG
