I linked to a powerful column by Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Robert L. Jamieson, Jr., earlier this month. That column asked who was the real hero, Ehren Watada who shirked his sworn duty or Sgt. Mickel David Garrigus who was killed in Iraq. Today, Jamieson has a followup column to the first one. He points out the kind of letters or emails he got from people who objected to his column and the simplistic view of the situation and the soldiers that they have.
Praise and pans, cheers and jeers, more than a thousand people called, e-mailed or penned letters after I wrote this month about whether 1st Lt. Ehren Watada is a hero.
The Fort Lewis army officer is in the spotlight for refusing to take part in the Iraq war because he believes it is immoral and illegal. He has guts to follow his convictions. He is willing to stand up to a military machine that he thinks is killing for all the wrong reasons.
I still believe he is wrong for breaking ranks and not following orders.
People either admire Watada for following what they see as a higher moral law or deem him a coward for letting his fellow soldiers go to war while he stays home.
What struck me was the pervasive and troubling tone in the majority of the pro-Watada messages: a sense that U.S. soldiers in Iraq are unthinking cannon fodder with little understanding of why they're fighting — or who they're helping.
This perception nagged at me until the other day, when I came across a MySpace page of a U.S. soldier.
His name is Mark Daily.
Please read the whole thing. I excerpted a bit of this column, unlike the first. But there is much more.
