Voices of the Fallen 2006: Civil War | Newsweek National News

Things Fall Apart

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BELLINDA (9:27:55 AM) See, you are knee deep in psychology and sociology there

BELLINDA (9:28:08 AM) You thought you had it bad at home!!!

BLAKE (9:28:20 AM) Yes I am

BLAKE (9:28:25 AM) You are rubbing off on me

Russell, 35, died July 22 from an explosion while investigating a munitions cache outside Baghdad. He was on his second tour.

Army Maj. David G. Taylor Jr.
Aug. 9, Baghdad (journal for his newborn son)

It occurred to me again that I don't know how old you'll be when you read this. It wouldn't do to write things an 18-year-old might understand if you read this when you're five. I think I'll assume you're young when you read this. Anything you don't understand, we can talk about when you're older.

That was on my mind the other night when I was sitting in my HMMWV [Humvee] on a street in Baghdad, waiting for one of our companies to raid a suspected militia warehouse. It's a bad part of town. It was 0300, I was tired, and I started thinking of some of the more complicated aspects of this fight here.

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It is all so sad. Our American government always has good intentions that get lost in the mud of war. I spent close to 3 years in Laos and Nam in the 1970s during the war years. I witnessed the same events as we have experienced in Iraq. Some things never change and we never learn from out own history. 50,000 American lives lost in Nam. Now we are trading partners and it's all hug and kisses. In Iraq, we attempted the same deal of forcing democracy into a country that was not ready. Democracy comes from withing not from external sources. So we have lost over 5000 fine young men in Iraq whose voices we can listen to and feel the horrors. But we go back to our TVs as usual and let the government continue its' misguided policies of saving the world at great cost to we Americans. It only becomes a reality when someone in the family is blown to pieces by some terrorist in a foreign land. Keep our boys home to protect our land. Keep our boys home to protect our families. There is very little we can do when fighting in the terrorist own backyards. Too many to deal with and ultimately our Military will take the brunt of our governments misguided policies on how to wage a current day war against terrorists. Israel seems to be the only country to get it right. Eye for an Eye!!!

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Posted By: Disgrunted @ 01/06/2009 10:43:10 AM

It is all so sad. Our American government always has good intentions that get lost in the mud of war. I spent close to 3 years in Laos and Nam in the 1970s during the war years. I witnessed the same events as we have experienced in Iraq. Some things never change and we never learn from out own history. 50,000 American lives lost in Nam. Now we are trading partners and it's all hug and kisses. In Iraq, we attempted the same deal of forcing democracy into a country that was not ready. Democracy comes from withing not from external sources. So we have lost over 5000 fine young men in Iraq whose voices we can listen to and feel the horrors. But we go back to our TVs as usual and let the government continue its' misguided policies of saving the world at great cost to we Americans. It only becomes a reality when someone in the family is blown to pieces by some terrorist in a foreign land. Keep our boys home to protect our land. Keep our boys home to protect our families. There is very little we can do when fighting in the terrorist own backyards. Too many to deal with and ultimately our Military will take the brunt of our governments misguided policies on how to wage a current day war against terrorists. Israel seems to be the only country to get it right. Eye for an Eye!!!