http://www.startribune.com/stories/357/4714981.htmlNick Coleman, Star Tribune
It was on July 2 last summer that President Bush, challenging the insurgents in Iraq who had begun to attack U.S. troops, laid down his challenge: "Bring 'em on."
Minnesotans started coming home the very next day.
On July 3, Jim Herrgott, 20, of Shakopee, was shot through the neck by a sniper. A month later, on Aug. 6, Brian Hellermann, 35, of Freeport, died when his convoy was ambushed. On Nov. 17, Dale Panchot, 26, of Northhome, died in a rocket attack. And on Jan. 25, Patrick Dorff, 32, of Buffalo, died when his helicopter went down during a rescue mission.
And now, three more baby-faced Marines, killed during what we call Holy Week, fighting like holy hell over there, all of them barely out of school: Levi Angell, 20, from the paper-mill town of Cloquet. Moises Langhorst, 19, from Moose Lake. And Tyler Fey, all of 22, from Eden Prairie, where the waving grasslands were named for the beautiful garden where man and woman first saw the splendors of this world.
The Garden of Eden is lost. All we know is that it was somewhere in Iraq, it is probably on fire, and it is consuming young people who were among the best and the brightest, and who died in the hope they were bringing democracy to the freedom-loving people of Iraq. The people who have set Iraq on fire in order to get rid of the Americans.
(snip)
No weapons of mass destruction. No proof of links between the chaos in Iraq and the killers of Al Qaida, no democracy on the horizon, ready to be handed over to a grateful Iraqi nation. Just killings, revenge and more killings.
(snip)
Nick Coleman is at ncoleman@startribune.com.
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