I Want to Know Why…
Posted on | August 21, 2007
That’s unfortunately a common question these days. A soldier’s parent, having supported the enlistment and service of a child, has to face the death of that child:
Army Sgt. Princess C. Samuels was a girly girl.
She was a cheerleader in high school. She had a white poodle named Skylar whose ears and tail she had dyed pink. She had her Mustang custom painted pink and purple to match a Barbie car she owned as a child. She loved fashion, especially pink clothes.
Skylar and some of those pink clothes will be on hand next week when Samuels, 22, one of the latest casualties of the war in Iraq, is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
A graduate of Charles H. Flowers High School in Springdale, where she was in ROTC, Samuels, of Mitchellville, was killed by enemy fire Wednesday in Taji, Iraq. She was stationed there as an intelligence officer with Headquarters and Headquarters Troop, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, according to a Defense Department statement.
“I am very upset that this has happened,” Samuels’s distraught mother, Anika Lawal of Waldorf, said yesterday. “I want to know why I’m planning a funeral while George Bush is planning a wedding.”
The why, of course, is so George Bush and the neocons can put off admitting the failure of their policy—at least until 2009, when their president can safely retire.
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2 Responses to “I Want to Know Why…”
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August 21st, 2007 @ 2:04 pm
I’m very sorry for the loss of any military personnel. This particular death had nothing to do with George Bush’s daughter getting married, little to do with neocons … and everything to do with an ALL VOLUNTEER Army. If Princess Samuels didn’t know what being in the Army entailed, she should have investigated more. She couldn’t have been all bad as an Army enlisted … she made Sgt, and you don’t get that for wearing Pink in mufti.
If I’m remembering the article properly, she joined after troops were sent to Iraq … where did she think she might end up? And she “wanted to travel” — then she should have worked on a cruise ship.
My condolences to Sgt Samuel’s family and friends.
August 21st, 2007 @ 3:06 pm
Alison, Samuels’ death had nothing to do with all-volunteer service, either; she would be just as dead had she been drafted to serve in the War to Preserve George Bush’s Vanity.
Since you’re willing to acknowledge Samuels as a career professional, though, doesn’t the fact that Iraq frightened her so badly carry that much more weight? It’s very easy to pretend that she knew what she was getting into when she joined, but no, we veterans can tell you that Army service is never as the recruiters paint it—and this truth, a joke for me during my years far from combat, becomes deadly serious for my brothers and sisters who have to serve in a war zone year after year.
Endless rotations into a useless war do not serve the country’s needs, and the Bush policy of endless conflict is destructive even to our troops who haven’t yet died to delay his admission of failure.
Please don’t blame the troops, Alison, unless you want to allege specific wrongdoing. Blame the White House for putting our troops, and millions of civilians, in harm’s way. Blame Congress for allowing it, and for not stopping it in the years since the fiasco began. We owe them more than condolences; we owe them our best effort to bring them home quickly and safely, and to heal them from war’s physical and mental wounds.
All else is lip service.