More Death in Iraq: A Reluctant Soldier's Story

[The Blue Flower]

For anyone who's worried about the return of a military draft, Pellegrini was living proof that we already have one. He desperately did not want to serve in the Persian Gulf.
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There is so much sadness, and so much irony. The news of his death comes at the very same time that a right-wing slime machine is trying to put words in the mouth of a dead Marine, 24-year-old Casey Sheehan. They have engaged in obscene speculation that he would not have wanted his mother Cindy Sheehan -- the anti-war protester now camped outside the Bush compound in Crawford, Texas -- speaking out.

The obvious reality is that we'll never know exactly what Casey Sheehan, who was ambushed and killed in Sadr City in April 2004, thought about the war. But we do know what Gennaro Pellegrini thought, because he told us. A four-year veteran of the Philadelphia police force, he seemed to know what has eluded the grasp of the Pentagon, that the situation on the ground in Iraq was unworkable.

"This isn't a war they're giving us over there -- this is policing stuff," he told us.
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more at http://editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/shoptalk_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001012879

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. It's horrendous, isn't it? And he can't be in Crawford supporting Cindy

because he's dead. For no reason. Just like Casey. Just like so many other people, Iraqi and American.