Chris Hedges: "A lone soldier..who rises up inside the system..unmasks the military for what it is"

[Punx]

10. A story repeated to my by an Iraq vet's mother

Here’s a story I heard from an Iraq war veteran’s mother who worked with me years ago. Her son was a Sargent in the US Army and was on rotation in Iraq, And while searching for insurgents and weapons in the middle of the night the following occurred. They had kicked the door in and had entered a home. As he entered a room he was confronted by a man with an AK47 in one hand and an infant in the other. The man was wild eyed and terrified having been awoken suddenly. There’s no time to think and the Sargent shot him dead on the spot as he was trained. I think they may have had the wrong house. Not that it matters as we had no right to be there.

From what his mother said, this really disturbed him, which sadly I guess is a good thing, because if it didn’t…

My guess is that stories like this are all too common.


Winning hearts and minds at the time, not so much I think.