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Friday, December 29, 2006

Here's where the new soldiers are coming from
Posted by Jill | 6:57 PM
Jay Lassiter, at Blue Jersey explains:

A few months ago, a young Airman from New Jersey, Carl Ware Jr. was shot and killed in Iraq. Around the time of his funeral questions began to emerge about the exact nature of his death. A week ago, I was enjoying a rainy day off at home, drinking some Earl Grey and surfing the net. Out of the blue I get an instant message from "Justdunno." It was an unfamiliar screenname.
"You wrote about my brother."

Long, awkward, pregnant pause.

"Carl Ware."

Keep in mind, I recognized the name of course, but it had been a while since Airman Ware's death, so it wasn't exactly fresh in my mind what I wrote about him.

"I hope I didn't write anything that offended you," I typed.

"Not at all," she replied. She seemed grateful that we seemed willing to ask the tough questions, so she reached out.

I have one of those screennames that you can derive from my email address which you can find on this site. I'm not too hard to track down. But I was curious why did she reach out to me. Did she need a friend or was she just trying to keep her big brother's story alive?

"Both," she said.

Little sister told me -- as per the jag lawyer prosecuting this case -- that Carl died in Iraq because he was shot in the chest by a fellow American soldier, a guy who is now being detained in Kuwait awaiting trial. She pointed out that her brother's (alleged) killer had some mental issues and was admitted to the service at a time when recruiters were bending their standards and accepting just about anyone with a pulse. Anyway, the trial is coming in the spring, probably in March.


If you have a loved one in Iraq, or know someone who does, please think about this -- when you lower the standard to allow violent criminals and the mentally ill to become cannon fodder, what does that do to your loved one?

Mentally sound gay men and women with no criminal history are regarded as criminals by the military, but headcases and violent criminals are perfectly OK. What does that say about the greatest military in the world?
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