Like Lambs Led to the Slaughter
What is the life of a 17-year-old worth?
Two stories caught my eye today--one from the Rockford Register Star, the newspaper of my adopted hometown of Rockford, Illinois, and one from the Grand Haven Tribune, which I grew up reading in Spring Lake, Michigan. Each is the story of a young man who “volunteered to serve his country.” One, Christopher D. Kube, is returning to Macomb County, Michigan, in a body bag, victim of an IED explosion; the other, Ian Fiduccia, watched his roommate die and suffered second-degree burns and hearing loss when his Humvee was hit by a suicide bomber.
The attack on Fiduccia’s Humvee happened a week ago. He’s already been cleared to return to active duty.
Both young men were 18. And both enlisted at age 17, which required that they get permission from their parents. Fiduccia’s father, a Winnebago County Board member, says that, despite his son’s injury, he will “leave foreign policy debate to others and will continue to support the U.S. role in Iraq.” Kube leaves behind a teenaged widow, and four brothers and sisters younger than he. His mother, with no hint of irony, said of the incident in which her son was killed, “He volunteered for that mission. My son wasn’t even supposed to be there.”
Neither of them should have been, yet both families went along with the recruiters who prowl the halls of high schools, preying on the patriotic sentiments of young men barely old enough to drive, and too young even to vote for the men who sent them off to war--men who, almost to a man, avoided service in their own contemporary wars.
What is the life of a 17-year-old worth? For the neocons in the Bush administration, not much--as long as it’s not their own.
Iraq war | Nationalism | Neocons
Comments
Lets not forget how little, or how much a 17 year old is to the so called liberals in government as well. They talk a good game about getting the troops home but helped to send them there and their portfolios give them away with their investments in defense contractors.
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Christopher Kube is from my county and grew up about
20 miles from my home and I don’t know the Kubes.
When I heard his death reported on the local news
radio this morning I thought back to a report I
heard last week. Army recruitment was down in the
area of 15% in June and the Army blames “influencers”.
The news report stated that the primary “influencers”
that the Army blames are parents. Now, the Kubes have
lost a son and Mrs. Kube a husband, a man she only
married in April. I hope more “influencers”
frustrate other starry-eyed Christoper Kubes.
Here in Michigan the flags fly at half-staff when one
of our sons is killed in Bush’s War. The flags always
are at half-staff now.
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The average age of American combatants in WW II was 26.
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I tried to get into the National Guard six years ago, and wasn’t admitted because of numerous health issues. When the tally got to a dozen waivers and several more to go, I parted ways with the helpful and friendly recruiter. Shortly after that, I was introduced to the works of Wendell Berry, switched off Hannity and Rush, and have now found my way to the small but growing ranks of Paleoconservatism.
Thank God for all those broken bones and visits to the doctor! The way these wars are going I’m sure I’d qualify today, and I’m still likely to get drafted when we storm the sands of Iran.
The battle involved in being a vocal opponent of Bush and his ilk rouses the spirit that had me in a recruiters office in the first place. I wanted to serve - now I am.
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The only people whose lives this regime really cares about are the wealthy and and Zionists of any income level.
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