Salon: Remembering Spc. Tomas Garces

[kskiska]

The first Texas National Guardsman to fall in combat since WWII came from a poor family. His death shows how far we've come from the days when rich kids like George W. Bush gamed the system to avoid war.

By Amy Smith

The death of a young Texas Guardsman on Sept. 6 went largely untold by the national press. But the story of Spc. Tomas Garces could have provided a poignant footnote to the "60 Minutes" interview that aired two days later with a well-known powerbroker from the Lone Star state.

As you may recall, former Texas House Speaker and Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes recounted how he had helped George W. Bush and other fortunate sons of the well-connected secure prized slots in the National Guard to duck the draft during the Vietnam era. By the time the TV story played to millions of households, Garces' parents, Sonia and Rafael Garces, were overcome with grief and making funeral arrangements for their son, the second of five children. That he was the Texas Guard's first combat casualty since World War II meant little to them.

(snip)

What the country could learn is that the commander in chief who joined the Texas Guard to escape combat (and went on to shirk routine physicals and weekend drills) more than two decades ago is relying on a very different Guard to fight his protracted war in Iraq today. Now the Texas Guard is mostly men and women like Garces who come from families of modest means. They are certainly not the sons of Texas powerbrokers who comprised the "champagne unit" of Bush's 147th Air Guard in Houston.

(snip)

A strapping high school wrestling champion, Garces dreamed of using the Guard's tuition benefits to attend college and become a wrestling coach. At the time, the topic of war had not yet grown to a point of national debate and so the Garces family assumed that Tomas would be able to stay close to home while assisting victims of hurricanes and floods, according to his younger brother Ruben.

more…
http://salon.com/news/feature/2004/10/30/spc_garces/index.html

[awgoodkitty]

1. So sad - just like the song

I've had this stuck in my head recently when thinking about the soliders we've lost and how * shirked his duty. I hope their ghosts haunt him.


Daylight Again/Find the Cost of Freedom
Words and music by Stephen Stills


Daylight again
Following me to bed
I think about a hundred years ago
How my Fathers bled

I think I see a valley
Covered with bones in blue
*****All the brave soldiers that cannot get older
Been asking after you*******

Hear the past a' calling
From Armageddon's side
When everyone's talking and no one
Is listening
How can we decide

Do we find the cost of freedom
Buried in the ground
Mother Earth will swallow you
Lay your body down