NOTE FROM BRAD: On August 28, 2005, I was the first in the national media to interview U.S. Army Specialist Tomas Young at “Camp Casey” in Crawford, TX. He and his then wife Brie had come down from Kansas City on their honeymoon to support Cindy Sheehan, the “Gold Star Mom” who was famously demanding a meeting with George W. Bush. Tomas’ unarmored vehicle had been ambushed in Sadr City, Iraq on the same day that Sheehan’s son Casey was killed in the same city. The attack left Tomas paralyzed from the chest down.
Since Bush had refused to meet with Sheehan — claiming he had already met with her some months earlier, prior to proclaiming those who had died in Iraq had done so for a “noble cause” which he refused to define — Tomas wanted to find out if he might be able to meet with Bush himself to ask what the “noble cause” was. We came up with the idea to paint a sign to help the media notice his plight. Some of the other veterans who were there as well helped to create the sign and it was, indeed, picked up by AP at the time.
Some years later, Tomas’ story would be told on 60 Minutes, and then in a heart-wrenching 2007 documentary film, Body of War, by Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro. (My interview on the ground at “Camp Casey” with Tomas and Brie is seen briefly in both. The full audio of my interview with them is posted in full at the bottom of this article, after Tomas’ letter.)
He and Brie have since divorced and Tomas remarried last year. Now, ten years this week after the launch of the War on Iraq, what was left of Tomas’ body is failing and, as Chris Hedges recently reported, he has decided to let himself die. Now in hospice care, Tomas, who was 25 when we met and is now just 33-years old, plans to end his long fight. He says he will remove his own feeding tube sometime after his first anniversary with his new wife Claudia in April and before the second birthday of his niece in June.
The following open letter, which Tomas says is his “last”, was originally published this week at TruthDig and republished in full here with their permission.
To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
From: Tomas Young
I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.
I write this letter on behalf of husbands and wives who have lost spouses, on behalf of children who have lost a parent, on behalf of the fathers and mothers who have lost sons and daughters and on behalf of those who care for the many thousands of my fellow veterans who have brain injuries. I write this letter on behalf of those veterans whose trauma and self-revulsion for what they have witnessed, endured and done in Iraq have led to suicide and on behalf of the active-duty soldiers and Marines who commit, on average, a suicide a day. I write this letter on behalf of the some 1 million Iraqi dead and on behalf of the countless Iraqi wounded. I write this letter on behalf of us all-the human detritus your war has left behind, those who will spend their lives in unending pain and grief.
I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done. You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans-my fellow veterans-whose future you stole…
Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.
I joined the Army two days after the 9/11 attacks. I joined the Army because our country had been attacked. I wanted to strike back at those who had killed some 3,000 of my fellow citizens. I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had no part in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to its neighbors, much less to the United States. I did not join the Army to “liberate” Iraqis or to shut down mythical weapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what you cynically called “democracy” in Baghdad and the Middle East. I did not join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told us could be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues. Instead, this war has cost the United States over $3 trillion. I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptive war. Pre-emptive war is illegal under international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I now know, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is the largest strategic blunder in U.S. history. It obliterated the balance of power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutal pro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power through the use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iran as the dominant force in the region. On every level-moral, strategic, military and economic-Iraq was a failure. And it was you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you who should pay the consequences.
I would not be writing this letter if I had been wounded fighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out the attacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still be miserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death, but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injuries were a consequence of my own decision to defend the country I love. I would not have to lie in my bed, my body filled with painkillers, my life ebbing away, and deal with the fact that hundreds of thousands of human beings, including children, including myself, were sacrificed by you for little more than the greed of oil companies, for your alliance with the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia, and your insane visions of empire.
I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.
My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live. I hope that before your time on earth ends, as mine is now ending, you will find the strength of character to stand before the American public and the world, and in particular the Iraqi people, and beg for forgiveness.
• Read Chris Hedges’ 3/10/13 “The Crucifixion of Tomas Young” to learn about Tomas’ life, and continuing physical deterioration since the Body of War documentary, and his decision to finally allow himself to die.
• Audio from my 8/25/05 interview with Tomas Young on The BRAD SHOW (my old syndicated weekend radio program), including the harrowing story of his injury, the experience he had afterward, what brought him to Camp Casey on his honeymoon, and our attempt to paint a sign in hopes of helping the corporate media do the job that America needed them to — all with the live sounds of Camp Casey in the background — follows…
PART 1: Young’s story, with then wife Brie (MP3, 22 mins) …
The BRAD BLOG on the Air 3/20/2013Tomas Young’s ‘Last Letter’: A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran · · · · · Tomas Young’s ‘Last Letter’: A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran0:00 0:00PART 2 – More w/ Young, hatching the plan to demand a meeting with George W. Bush (MP3, 14 mins) …
The BRAD BLOG on the Air 3/20/2013Tomas Young’s ‘Last Letter’: A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran · · · · · Tomas Young’s ‘Last Letter’: A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran0:00 0:00
And yet there are still people supporting Bush and his going to war. Unbelievable. I really believe that President Obama not going after Bush and his administration for war crimes was the reason a lot of democrats stayed home in 2010 and that let the T party come in. What a mistake that was. If the democrats stay home in 2014 we might as well kiss our SS and medicare goodbye. If it hadn’t been for the social programs this country would have been into a DEPRESSION in 2008.
I read Tomas’ letter and I cried. He so perfectly and painfully articulated what George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and their cohorts did to thousands of young men and women, and ultimately to their country. I have written many letters to both of them in my mind, but had no hope that if I hard copied those letters and mailed them they would ever reach their destinations. I to am shocked that only 53% of the American public believes that we should not have gone into Iraq…it should be 99.5%. What’s wrong with us that we can condone killing our young for no reason whatsoever except the egos and gross callousness of our elected officials. These two, Bush and Cheney, and all that carried out their lies belong in prison for life for the murder and maiming of thousands. There aren’t enough tears to shed for what has been done here…and none of these people has even had the decency to apologize.
OBAMA is guilty of treason and war crimes himself, how could he say anything about anyone else. I lost an uncles in WWII and had other uncles serving. No one made you join the army, you did that youself. You should have known that government will always lie to you. OBAMA will finish off the US if Congress lets them, of course, no one in government cares about anyone but themselves. They have become the Master and we are the slaves, the poor man has always fought the wars. I feel for you, but don’t blame anyone because you chose what you wanted to do. I’m sorry for your loss, but wars will always be there and young men will always die, we send the best. OBAMA is not a veteran, not even a citizen, he will continue on with the wars and he is about to get us into another one so it continues. The Democrats controlled the Congress so they make the rules for veterans, they do not do enough for them it is so sad, they should have the best care. Maybe we could give Congress, President and house the veterans benefits and let the veterans have their benefits as you know they have the best insurance in the world and its not OBAMACARE.
This is so true, it made me cry. They should have been procecuted for what they did to so many people.
I want to thank Tomas Young for saying so eloquently what I have thought since I first heard talk of the possibility of going to war in Iraq. I hope that his words inspire all of us to be more skeptical in believing everything we are told by so-called “authorities”.
I hope that he can attain true peace of mind.
Mr Young’s letter ought to garner him the Medal of Honor, but in reality it’s just another version of the film “Born of the 4th of July.”
Sonja @ 3:
It’s fun they you are accusing “OBAMA” of “treason and war crimes” (without proffering any actual evidence for it, mind you) but are willing to give excuses to the Republicans you voted for for having done that same thing. The excuses you are willing to make for war criminals and traitors would be amusing, were it not so sad, deadly and utterly revealing of your lack of morals and character.
Yes, liars will lie and murderers will murder. That you are willing to let them off the hook because, “hey, that’s just what they do!”, is fairly appalling.
That you are obsessed with what you think “OBAMA” has done, and that you think it was a Democratically controlled Congress that gave Bush the free pass to launch a war based on lies and deception, only reveals how extraordinarily misinformed you have been for at least a decade now.
That you are not embarrassed about that, but rather attempt to move the goalposts to Obama (who was not even in Congress at the time), is just plain sad and embarrassing.
Tomas Young is a great patriot. He signed up to respond against those he was told had attacked us on 9/11. He did so just two days after the attack. Had he been told he would be sent to fight people who had nothing to do with that attack — by people who had blatantly lied in saying that they did — I suspect he would have been no more inclined to sign up to fight than your uncles would have been if they had been sent into a war with China in order to respond to Pearl Harbor. (And since, based on your note, it appears you may not be bright enough to know, I’ll just mention here that it was Japan, not China, which carried out the attack on Pearl Harbor.)
But thanks for letting us all know that you believe war criminals should never face accountability for their crimes. That you are in favor of murderers running free. Unless they are named “OBAMA” of course. Actually, it’s the war criminals who thank you for coming to their defense. Not me.
I was in the air force under Bill Clinton and never went to war to war for oil. Dick Cheney’s Haliburton almost went out business because of Clinton/Gore were too smart to listen about NeoCons BS Saddam warnings. President Reagan sold nuclear weapons to both Iraq and Iran during the Iran-Iraq war. The Neocons needed somebody stupid and greedy to go to war so they impeached Clinton so Bush could win. Clinton and Barack Obama both finished first in their class at Harvard law and too smart for conservative BS government milkers like Cheney.
Those who do not read history are doomed to repeat it and defend the terrorists like the good blond Christians on Germany under Hitler or Bush. Both were failures in school and hotheads who believed God chose them.
I have to agree with Brad that Obama did not make the Halliburton administration commit their war crimes… they did that on their own for the greater glory and benefit of the elites.
Obama and the rest of the Dems just helped cover up those crimes afterwards.
And to this day Obama and the Dems continue committing their own war crimes on behalf of our owners.
Well said Zapkitty.
Recently the owners were found and identified in a thicket of 47 international corporations with no moorings to any single nation.
They are intellectually incestuous by “virtue” of their owning each other. Literally.
Today, Democracy Now! aired this video in which Tomas Young is interviewed by Amy Goodman:
Aside from the statements about Afghanistan (or its leaders) being primarily responsible for 9/11/01, which I believe is ridiculous based on everything that has been discovered since 9/11/01, this is definitely one of the most eloquent statements I have ever read regarding the horrible consequences of the Iraq war.
This man is a hero.
As I read this I pictured Bush and Cheney sitting together with their fellow oligarchs, underage prostitutes serving scotch, cigars and cocaine, while these “men” laugh at Mr. Young’s words.
They hold only contempt for all of the “suckers” who fought based on the completely cynical lies the oligarchy fed the public. They revel in the pain they caused because it makes them feel more powerful, more in control, vastly superior to the people whose lives they ruined.
One could reasonably question if they even see these people – men, women, wives, children, parents – as human beings, as having any worth whatsoever outside of their value as cannon fodder to the oligarchy.
They just don’t care about you; the elite, the oligarchy, the captured bureaucrats and military officers, the compromised senators and congressmen, they don’t care about Thomas Young, Brad Friedman, you or I.
They don’t care about you, they probably never will. I wonder how many incarnations it will take for Bush/Cheney and the oligarchy behind them to wake up to their unnatural morality, how many good deeds in the future will be necessary to balance the wheel of karma.
And yes, Obama effectively joined the Bush/Cheney club when he explicitly and cynically repudiated his campaign promise to close Guantanamo. He has done more since to cement his status as successor to the office of Moral-Pariah-In-Chief.
Tomas Young reads his last letter on Democracy Now!
Sonja @3 wrote:
What better way to destroy your own credibility, Sonja, than to repeat the thoroughly discredited “birther” garbage.
Sonja is apparently a Fox Misinformation watcher as only yesterday, one of their commentators said the best decision Bush did was invade Iraq. Also you can tell Fox watchers that any time a subject comes up they spin it at Obama crime. The reason Obama didn’t close the base in Cuba was because the republicans cut off the money to move the prisoners to the US. Fox news is a 24 hour propaganda channel for the republican party. I have always said someone could commit murder and the republicans would keep on voting for them.
As far as Veteran benefits if it wasn’t for the democrats there would not be half of the benefits that they have. Remember back in 2006 the democrats were pushing for more veteran benefits and the republicans were fighting it. After John McCain saw that they were going to pass without the republican vote, McCain voted yes. Then Bush came around and told McCain that he did a good job in getting them passed after fighting against them. The problem people have so short memories
I am humbled by your truth sir, and have always thought our country acted stupidly(manipulated) in engaging in war for oil. We should build smart grids and get our cutting edge status back from the imperiralist investing in China.
Happier trails! 🙂
And this time Rand corp…the people get to write the text book history!
I am also a teacher ya know. Among many other things I presently do. An hey guess what, mi Madre helped the catholic school teachers unionize! At least here in my little neck of the woods. Soul refinement is what it is all about Brothers and Sisters!!!!!
WE ARE NOT THEIR SLAVES OF MANY COLORS.
Newman @15
You really believe that the Republicans are responsible for stopping the closure of Guantanamo because they cut off money to move prisoners to the US?
Even if that is the case, Obama couldn’t use that opportunity to get on TV and start blasting Republicans for making it “impossible” to close Guantanamo?
It seems like a pretty easy political calculation. Make the Republicans look like blood thirsty freaks of nature who want to PAY to keep what is likely a 99-100% innocent prison population in foreign military jail forever without trial. While he can stand up for what is obviously – beyond a shadow of a doubt, without any complication or need to think it about it for more than ten seconds – completely morally and ethically and strategically proper.
Maybe he was more interested in passing his pharmaceutical and insurance company written health care bill so he didn’t want to “waste political capital” on doing what is right and completely within his power as commander and chief.