Anika Lawal would welcome such an explanation from the current commander in chief

[dajoki]

Bush Invokes Vietnam, Without Remorse
This week Bush finally started talking about the connection between Iraq and Vietnam -- but he's missing the true lessons.
Terence Samuel | August 24, 2007 | web only
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=bush_invokes_vietnam_without_remorse

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Today Bush faces the same kind of visceral rage from families of those killed in action. First it was Cindy Sheehan's Camp Casey outside his Crawford home. Then the day before his Kansas City speech, the local section of the Washington Post carried a story about a young soldier, Sgt. Princess C. Samuels, who was killed a week earlier in Iraq.

Noting the recent happy news coming out of the White House, Stg. Samuel's mother, Anika Lawal, reacted angrily: "I want to know why I'm planning a funeral while George Bush is planning a wedding?"

There is no reasonable answer to that question: It is not a reasonable question. But it speaks to the desperate, collective yearning for an answer on Iraq that has developed among most Americans. We want some satisfactory explanation of how we got here and how we get out.

In that hot summer 30 years ago, Johnson said that, of course, he understood the family's grief: "I just wished that it was possible for me have enough time to sit down and express the gratitude this nation feels for the service of the young men such as the one who belonged to this home," he said, " and perhaps give them a little better explanation of what we were doing there, and why."

Anika Lawal, and much of the rest of the country, would welcome such an explanation from the current commander in chief.