Sacrifice

President Bush thinks that watching 30 seconds of footage from Iraq on the nightly news is a sacrifice (of our "peace of mind," as he put it to Jim Lehrer) on par with the sacrifices of the troops and their families. If he thought average Americans should be doing more for the war effort than simply shopping, those asinine words "I think we have a lot of people in this fight" never would have slipped from his lips.

I watch the news and read the paper and most definitely haven't seen my peace of mind since sometime in early 2003.

That is not sacrifice.

This is sacrifice. This is the story of a soldier who was in Ranger school with my brother. This is the story of a guy who was KIA in Afghanistan on 29 October 2005, and of the guys who were beside him when he was killed, who hadn't been able to even put that story into words until this past December. This is the story of an American soldier who died in the war George Bush forgot in favor of his Iraq ego trip. I have changed the names out of respect for the soldier's family and buddies, none of whom would likely appreciate landing on a liberal dyke's blog after Googling his name. Otherwise, it's verbatim as I received it from my brother, written by a buddy who was there.

I've been writing this out for a while,Getting it out is all I can think about....This happened on the morning of Oct. 29th 2005, I was on guard on top of the truck,it was almost daybreak,CPT. T woke up and told me to start getting ready to move and to call up top and tell SSG Knox to start getting ready to go,SSG Grant came up to relieve me,as i was getting down I heard Knox call up and say that they heard movement right beneath them,as i jumped down I heard gunfire explode everywhere,i looked up top and saw rounds flying all over the place,i realized that we were getting shot at too,i heard an RPG fly right over us and saw SSG Grant duck,I thought about our rear and went to put Leandro and Doc in to watch our backside,I ran back to the truck and found Donkey and Lt. T shooting at everything,Donkey was yelling at Mash that he had called up for air and they were coming,Lt. T was trying to shoot and call up a fire mission at the same time,I directed Donkeys' fire and told Lt. T where the fire was coming from,I kept trying to think of what i had to do next,I heard knox on the radio saying that they were running low on ammo,we had only been in the fight for a few minutes it seemed cause everything happened so fast,as soon as i heard ammo i ran to the trucks to get it ready,i asked Cpt. T who he wanted me to take with me,he said to take Doc,i gave doc some rounds and told him to follow me,i looked over and Cpt t. told me to head up,i heard another RPG fly over us and thought that this was gonna be fun...

me and doc headed up,we were about halfway there when the weight of the rounds got to us,as i slowed down rounds started hitting all around us,i thought to myself,"dumbass, you're right in their sights",if you ever need motivation,try getting shot at,we took off again,as i got to the top i saw bo sitting against a tree and rotty on the radio,knox was on the gun and pierce was right next to him,i went to knox and asked him what he needed,he said that mears and speck needed ammo,and gammons needed 203 rounds,i threw gammons the 203 rounds cause he was on the other side of knox,then i asked him if he wanted me to take the gun,he said that he was fine and that he needed me to get the ammo to the guys,i ran to mears and speck,speck had this dumb smile on his face and was telling me that he had hit one of the guys dead on with a 203,mears kept saying that i got there right in time with the ammo,doc was still with me,i looked back to where knox was,i heard three distinct shots,i saw knox stand up,i heard him say something like "I'm sorry,I'm sorry"someone else says that he said something else,I'm not sure,after he said that he hit the ground,doc took off and i was right behind him,when we got over there doc pulled knox back about two feet and started working on him,i saw the gun and picked it up,i saw hajis running and i fired all the rounds left on the gun,as i was reloading it i saw two of them crawling into the bushes,i got the gun back up and fired some more into the bushes i had just seen them crawling into,i remember thinking that doc was exposed to fire while he was working on knox but he didn't care,i asked doc how he was and heard rotty yelling for a status on knox,i asked doc to help him,doc said he was trying but we had to get him down,gammons kept yelling for cover fire,i slapped knox and pinched him to try to get him to respond,this was when i realized i was scared to lose him,i kept hearing gammons so i turned back and let loose with the 240 thinking that i was gonna put as much lead into them that i could,i looked over and gammons and pierce were gone,i realized we were pulling back and thought to myself that it was about time,rotty was still with us and thomas had appeared,i remember thinking that i didn't know where thomas had been cause i didn't see him until then,doc said that he needed help moving knox,i handed him the gun and me and thomas picked him up,i remember hoping that it wasn't that bad cause there wasn't any blood,knox was limp...we kept slipping trying to hold him,i told thomas it would be easier for a one man carry and he helped me put knox on my shoulders,he kept slipping down,i carried him for about 50 meters before he fell off,thomas came up and i helped him get knox on his shoulders,i grabbed thomas's weapon for him and we headed to the trucks,when we got down leandro had a truck ready and we got knox on it,i kept hoping that we had made it in time,leandro started hauling ass to the HLZ to get knox on a bird,i went back to my truck and saw rotty,he asked me how knox was and i told him that i didn't know,he said that knox was his best friend and that he didn't know what he would do if he wasn't alright,i told him that we still had a job to do and that we should concentrate on security,i was talking more to myself than rotty cause i didn't want to think about what i already knew in the back of my mind,i went to check the perimeter and to get away from my truck,i had a tacsat in there and i knew that they would be calling soon with a status on knox,our re-enforcements started showing up a little while later,Cpt T. called us in,I could tell already what he had to say,i couldn't look up,i heard him say that knox had died on the bird,rotty started screaming "those motherfuckers" "i'll kill all of them",he hit his knees,i got down beside him and hugged him...he kept saying"those motherfuckers"Cpt T. said that we needed to move out,i kept thinking that none of this was real,that this hadn't just happened,i got my truck ready and got in it,i didn't want to go to the bottom of the mountain cause i knew my friends were down there and SFC Shaw too,i felt like we had let everyone down.i couldn't think,i wanted to drive my truck off the side of the mountain to get it all out of my head,we got to the bottom and everyone was kinda standing around,i could tell that everyone already knew,i could tell that SFC Shaw was hurt and pissed,i didn't want to look at anyone,i stood by my truck until Cpt T. called everyone in to tell them,I couldn't look up from the ground,i felt like everyone was staring at us and calling us failures,i remember someone asking me what had happened and i couldn't even talk,i just walked back to my truck,we loaded up the vehicles and moved back to base,that was the most silent that truck had ever been,i could hear someone crying in the truck,i don't know who it was,maybe it was me,or Cpt T.i can't remember,we got back to base and SSG Grant helped me download the truck,i hadn't cried since i was 12 years old,but for the next two days i couldn't stop,

we had a memorial for him at camp tillman and i've never seen more grown men crying as i did that day,i couldn't let go of my friend wallace,and i was glad he was there cause i needed a friend with me,losing a friend or family member sucks,it's a part of life,i guess this is so hard even now because when you're in a platoon with someone,you don't realize how much they become a part of your life,knox was the guy that was screaming in the back of the plane to open the doors cause he was "all dressed up and nowhere to go",he was the guy that told sgt macomb that i said i could take his smokings all day cause i was a rock,then sgt macomb smoked me for three hours,he was the guy in ranger school that made me sit on the steps with him for five hours when i was dead tired cause he was scared that he wouldn't pass and come back to bragg a failure,he was the guy that would look you in the eye when he talked to you because he wanted you to know that he cared,he was the guy that left his door open after the duty day cause he liked it when guys would randomly walk into his room,he was the guy that was always trying to make a joke but they were never very funny,you had to laugh anyway because it was knox,he was the guy that made me drive him to raleigh because he wanted to see kelly but he had to study for a test,he was the guy that died fighting because he stayed on the gun to protect his men, i know that all us b co. guys have all had a hard time living with this,i think everyone feels some level of responsibilty, everyone thinks if i had only done this a little differently,but lately i've been thinking if knox would have done things differently,i don't think he would have,i'm grateful to have known him....

i post this for a few personal reasons,but also this,i don't want him to be forgotten,i want people to know what happened that day,the day that an american hero layed down his life for his friends,his brothers...

George Bush doesn't know the first fucking thing about sacrificing anything that actually belongs to him.