Here is an absolutely heartbreaking story that documents how a startling number of young men are coming home to America to embrace a fate worse than death.
While I would never wish this sort of tragedy on anyone, it should be criminal for hypocrites like Obama, Bush, Santorum, Romney, etc. to lobby for war/occupation without having once served in the front lines of a combat unit themselves. At the very least, they should volunteer their own children for service if they feel so strongly about the matter.
Don’t misunderstand me, I am not a pacifist. I do believe in just war if America’s vital interests are threatened. I would never shrink from my duties as a man if my family was at risk and would have willingly given my life in service to the Confederacy, for instance.
However, these illegal and unconstitutional wars/occupations for Israel are not worth the lives and manhood of boys who have shown more courage than any of the current career politicians ever have.
The only mistake they possibly made was volunteering to sacrifice so much on behalf of an empire that doesn’t deserve them.
Before they went off to fight in Afghanistan, the guys of 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines talked quietly about their deepest fear. Not dying. Not losing a leg or an arm.
It was having their genitals ripped off, burned away or crushed in the fiery blast of an improvised explosive device.
This was no idle concern to young men bursting with testosterone. The makeshift bombs known as IEDs are taking a frightening toll in Afghanistan, the blasts shearing off arms and legs, ripping through soft flesh, crushing organs and bone, and driving dirt, rocks and filth deep into torn flesh — often leaving the genitals shredded or missing. Some guys said they’d rather be dead.
Mark Litynski, a 23-year-old rifleman with Lima Company, knew the odds. He’d been married to Heather for almost a year, and children were in the future they planned together.
I ought to freeze my sperm so we could still have kids if something happened, he thought.
The idea nagged at him. But in the rush of last-minute training before they packed their sea bags and weapons and then took a few days of boisterous leave, he kept putting it off. Where do you go to freeze your sperm, anyway? Who would you even ask?
By the time they loaded on the buses at Camp Pendleton, it was too late. Should have done it, Mark thought as they boarded the plane in September 2010.
Weeks later, Mark was on a combat patrol in Sangin, southern Afghanistan, walking behind an engineer sweeping for IEDs, marking their path with yellow spraypaint. IED detectors aren’t foolproof. There came a bright flash and searing heat, then the upward blast ripped off both of Mark’s legs and most of his left arm, slashing into his remaining arm, shattering his pelvis and driving a rock and other debris up into his abdominal cavity.
Amid the bloody carnage, all the skin was ripped from his penis and his testicles were gone.
Days later, after trauma surgeons in Germany finished trimming and suturing his stumps and temporarily closing his abdominal wounds, he managed to say a few words to Heather on the phone.
“I’m so sorry,” he croaked.
“I love you,” she told him, blinking back tears. “We will pull through this together, as a team.”
The decade of U.S. combat in Afghanistan has left Afghans and Americans with a seemingly endless series of woes. But among the most devastating are the blast wounds that have left more than 16,000 young Americans severely wounded.
Several hundred have suffered genital injuries in addition to amputations and burns, leaving them unable to father children and struggling to engage in something resembling the sex they used to have, often without the aid of what many view as the primary symbol of their manhood.
“Who’s going to want to be with me now?” wondered Marine Staff Sgt. Glen Silva, 39, after an IED blast shattered his leg, ripped open his lower torso and severed most of his penis.
It was a legitimate concern. Silva’s girlfriend stayed with him at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., through many of his 42 surgeries. But one day he was wheeled back to his room to find she had gone, leaving a nine-word handwritten note: “I can’t take this any more. I’m outta here.”
(Snip)
I would like for everyone reading this to say a prayer for this family.
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