No More Lives Lost

These fine letters appeared in the Bucks County Courier Times last Saturday (I’m sorry I only have a thumbnail of Jae Moon for this post).

We were brought to tears when we read about the death of our son’s friend Jae Moon in Iraq in the December 28, 2006 edition of the Courier Times.

He was a wonderful boy who we have known since he was in elementary school.

The waste of a wonderful life such as his is a crime beyond compare and we grieve with his family. Both Jae’s family and Bucks County will be much poorer for his loss.

In the December 29, 2006 Courier Times, we get to read (in the same column) that President Bush spent nearly three hours “consulting his plan” for Iraq, which will almost certainly mean that more, such as Jae, will die for this man’s blunders.

Three hours? Is that all he can spare from his vacation? Bush has had the Iraq Study Group’s report for more than a month. He has been in charge of the occupation of Iraq for three and a half years. And he is still deciding?

How much longer will “The Decider” take?

How many more wonderful people such as Jae will die while Bush takes his own sweet time on the fiasco he has created?

Or, is Bush’s vacation time more important?

Almeda and Stephen Ruger
Middletown Township, PA

Jae Moon died in Iraq on Christmas Day. He died in a war that shouldn’t have been started and was conducted so poorly as to verge on the criminal. A war that was overwhelmingly repudiated by the American people 37 days before Jae died.

The Moon family moved in a few doors down from my childhood home. My mother watched Jae grow from a precocious child, to a respectful teenager to a responsible adult with a bright future ahead of him. It would be hard not to love the kind of person Jae was.

I returned to the area before Jae entered the Army in order to obtain a college education and pursue a career in the FBI. I was here when he came home for a visit during his first tour in Iraq. Typically, he didn’t tell his parents he was coming; he just showed up at the door. During a visit with us at the time he said his main concern about being in Iraq was how his parents worried.

Jae returned from that first tour in Iraq and his family, friends and those of us who knew him in Deep Dale West were jubilant. He told us that he was happy he would be reporting to a safe post in Colorado. We hadn’t heard that the Army deemed it necessary to send him to Iraq again.

Jae called his parents on Christmas Eve, 10 days after he was severely wounded by an IED that exploded hear his Humvee. I can only assume that he didn’t mention his injuries because of his love for his parents and concern about them worrying. He died the next day.

Jae Moon, like the other men and women who have died during their tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, is a hero. He was a bright young man and carried out the responsibilities he took on when he joined the Army.

As of Jan. 10, (2007), 3,018 service men and women have died in Iraq, 22,714 have been wounded, with 2,881 having died since our commander in chief, who managed to shirk his own duty in Vietnam and whose own daughters are safe to romp around South America, flew onto an aircraft carrier and declared mission accomplished.

I am sickened by the death of Jae Moon. I am sickened over the pain his parents are suffering today along with the pain and suffering of so many other parents. I am sickened over the irresponsibility of our elected leaders who, while admitting the war is a lost cause, won’t bring our men and women home to their families.

The Iraq Study Group and the generals on the ground have indicated that we need to start reducing the forces in Iraq. If George Bush is in such a state of denial that he continues to balk – or even sends in more troops – then we as American people need to rally and demand and end to the carnage. Jae Moon’s death requires nothing less.

Chuck Thompson
Middletown Township, PA

The funeral for President Ford is over. The events were memorable, appropriate and well deserved. Ford qualifies as a genuine American hero. But so do thousands of young American soldiers today. Yet we sneak them back into the country in caskets, acknowledging their passing with a knock on the door, a letter of commendation and a folded flag.

Presley R. Brown
Middletown Township, PA

And do I really need to ask whether or not the additional troops Dubya, Cheney, St. McCain and Lieberman want to send over will be properly armored?

No, I didn’t think so.

As John Edwards pointed out yesterday, we must do two things:

1) Join nearly 50,000 other Americans who have signed the petition calling on Congress to block funding for escalating the war in Iraq.

2) Call your Senators directly and tell them to block funding for escalation. Click here for your Senators' contact information.

Because, as Chuck Thompson said, Jae Moon’s death requires nothing less.