War & Peace This Veteran’s Day
Remembering Tomas Young November 10, 2014 by Karin Kamp
Weve just heard that Iraq war veteran Tomas Young, one of the first vets to publicly oppose the war, has died at the age of 34.
Young was featured in Body of War, a documentary by Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro that was featured on Bill Moyers Journal in March 2008. The film focused on Tomas, who was shot and paralyzed just days after beginning his tour of duty in Iraq.
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He was a political animal and he had a political statement that he wanted to make, Donahue told BillMoyers.com. Tomas wanted people to know that this is the drama being played out in houses across the country occupied by thousands of young men and women who fought in the war, he said, referring to injuries that left Young in need of round-the-clock care.
The 24-year-old Young enlisted in the Army after the 9/11 attacks because he wanted to fight terrorists in Afghanistan, but instead was sent to Iraq. Five days after arriving there in 2004, he was shot in the chest and severely wounded. He was left paralyzed from the waist down and as the result of medical complications later became a quadriplegic ...
More here: http://billmoyers.com/2014/11/10/remembering-tomas-young-veterans-day/