‘They Were Lying’
What do you want at this point from the Army? From the administration?
The only thing that they could do is admit that they did this on purpose, that they tried to use him as a political tool. I don't think that that's going to happen. I think they dug a hole too deep and they're too narcissistic to admit it. And I don't really expect anything anymore, because I don't think anyone's going to hold them accountable. I believe that the hearing in August when Rumsfeld and the panel of generals were up there, I think it was clear they were lying.
You uncovered one internal document written by a senior Army officer implying that your family was unable to accept your son's death because you're atheists.
He goes on this diatribe in the documents about it … I think that he thinks we're a big problem because we won't let this go and it's making the Rangers look bad, and I think that he believes that because we are atheists we can't put Pat to rest and we have to keep stirring up this problem, which is absolutely inaccurate. What people don't know is that we're grieving. We've lost this tremendous human being in our family, but because of the nature of this person we're certainly not these down-in-the-mouth people. We're living out life. I have a whole other side to my life. I've invested a lot of my energy into this, but I am not a humorless, morbid, crying person. And I am very spiritual. Pat was very spiritual, not religious. But they have this whole misunderstanding about this. And I don't care if you worship a grub on the ground, you're going to want to know what happened to your loved one in these kinds of circumstances. What he said, it was very disgusting, but at one level it's laughable.
One of the points you raise is that your son was more faithful to the Army than you think the Army was to him. Is there any way to repair that?
It's not just about our family—otherwise I don't even know if I would bother with all of this. [Pat's] intentions were good. And, you know, soldiers expect that they could die. They expect that they could be wounded severely. They expect that they could be mentally or emotionally damaged. These things they go in knowing, and if they don't know it immediately when they enlist, they figure it out pretty fast. But they don't expect their government to treat them and their families with disrespect when they die.
© 2008
Loading Menu
Member Comments
Posted By: TommyB53 @ 05/13/2008 1:14:44 AM
Comment: She IS standing for something. She's standing for what this country USED to stand for before the neo-cons used 9/11 as an excuse to throw our honor and ethics out the window with the help of their corporate buddies. You guys who try to spin the demand for accountability as simple hate need to turn off your radios and start reading books.
Posted By: TommyB53 @ 05/13/2008 1:04:25 AM
Comment: The flu kills 30,000 people a year. So where's the war on flu?
Posted By: TommyB53 @ 05/13/2008 12:45:08 AM
Comment: If the media is so liberal, then why during the run-up ti the Iraq war when the administration was parroting "weapons of mass destruction", did not a single reporter ever ask "Where's your proof...let's see it"? Not ONE! It's a simple question. No one asked it. This liberal media stuff is bunk. The media are owned by the same corporations who took us to war. And the same ones who are now raping the U.S. Treasury in the name of supporting the troops.
You really want to support the troops? Then demand that the military occupation and the reconstruction be funded separately and overseen separately.as two separate efforts. That will remove the ability of the corporations to accuse someone of not supporting the troops whenever they threaten to withold funding unkless the corporates account for where it's going. Oh yeah, and remove the loophole in the fraud law that exempts them from reporting their own fraud.