Tomas Young, 33, has been in a paraplegic state since the momenthe was injured in a 2004 insurgent attack in Sadr City. He saysthat battle — and the entire Iraq War — was one that never shouldhave been fought.
Young enlisted in the military just two days after the September11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center driven by a thirst toseek revenge for the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans. But on thetenth anniversary of the United States’ invasion of Iraq this week,Young wrote a letter to former President George W. Bush and hisrunning mate, Dick Cheney, condemning them for taking so manythousands of Americans to Iraq for a war that he says was neitherjustified nor legal.
“I did not join the Army to go to Iraq, a country that had nopart in the September 2001 attacks and did not pose a threat to itsneighbors, much less to the United States,” he wrote. “I didnot join the Army to ‘liberate’ Iraqis or to shut down mythicalweapons-of-mass-destruction facilities or to implant what youcynically called ‘democracy’ in Baghdad and the Middle East. I didnot join the Army to rebuild Iraq, which at the time you told uscould be paid for by Iraq’s oil revenues.”
Instead, what Young got was a bullet in the spin. Speaking toRT’s Meghan Lopez this week, he said, “I wasn’t received as ahero or not as a hero” when he first returned to the States,and right away he noticed there was a strong opposition to the verywar he had been accidently fighting. Any sort of ‘hero status,’ hesaid, came later when he joined the group Iraq Veterans Against theWar.
Now nearly a decade after being injured, Young says his days arenumbered. In 2008 he suffered a blood clot in his lung and slippedinto a coma for four days after being deprived of oxygen forhours.
“By all accounts, I should be dead,” he tells RT.
Young is still alive today, but doesn’t expect to last muchlonger. He says the VA hospital he would go to refused himnarcotics to treat chronic pain, apparently because his cries andmoans were not as loud as the other veterans seeking treatment.
“They had an opinion that If I was in truly horrible pain,I’d be screaming my head off. Apparently they thought that the onlypeople who really hurt are the people who advertise it most,”he tells RT.
Today Young is in a hospice facility but has stopped receivingany treatment for his multiple conditions, including those relatedto the paralyzing 2004 Iraqi ambush. He is also refusingnourishment and intends to very shortly die.
"This way, instead of committing the conventional suicide andI am out of the picture, people have a way to stop by or call andsay their goodbyes," Young told TruthDig.com earlier in theweek. "I felt this was a fairer way to treat people than to justgo out with a note."
Before all is said and done, though, Young says there issomething he still wants: an apology from Bush and Cheney. In theletter sent this week to the men he blames on the war, he wrote,“I would not be writing this letter if I had been woundedfighting in Afghanistan against those forces that carried out theattacks of 9/11. Had I been wounded there I would still bemiserable because of my physical deterioration and imminent death,but I would at least have the comfort of knowing that my injurieswere a consequence of my own decision to defend the country Ilove.”
“I especially did not join the Army to carry out pre-emptivewar,” he wrote Bush and Cheney. “Pre-emptive war is illegalunder international law. And as a soldier in Iraq I was, I nowknow, abetting your idiocy and your crimes. The Iraq War is thelargest strategic blunder in US history. It obliterated the balanceof power in the Middle East. It installed a corrupt and brutalpro-Iranian government in Baghdad, one cemented in power throughthe use of torture, death squads and terror. And it has left Iranas the dominant force in the region. On every level – moral,strategic, military and economic – Iraq was a failure. And it wasyou, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, who started this war. It is you whoshould pay the consequences.”
When asked by RT if he hopes the so-called ‘real war criminals’are prosecuted for their alleged crimes, Young said“absolutely.”
“That’s why they don’t leave the country. They are afraidthat if they step down in another country they will bearrested,” he said.
Since publishing his open letter to Pres. Bush and Vice Pres.Cheney during the war’s anniversary, Young’s words have gone viral.Speaking to RT, he says he wants a response of sorts to be issuedto not just him, but the rest of the United States.
“At the very least, I would like them to sincerely apologizeto all of America for dropping the ball on Afghanistan and insteadfocused on Iraq. And I want them to admit that it was both a hugeblunder and a terrible lie on the American people,” hesaid.
And to those who may have the desire to protect America like hedid in the wake of 9/11, Young warned of what going to war reallymeans.
“Make sure that your son or daughter understands that theydon’t get to decide when or where they go to war. Its rich,predominately white men in the House and Senate that have the powerto send children of other parents but not their own children off todie or be injured in a senseless war,” he said.
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