Here's a letter, written by an Iraq War veteran named Tomas Young under hospice care, to Dubya and Dick. His body has been ravaged by paralysis and resulting complications that he's decided to go off his feeding tube and "fade away" instead of the conventional suicide.

The Last Letter

Pretty powerful stuff. It saddens me to think of how many lives were destroyed because of Haliburton war complex, and how so few of us gave a crap about what was going on over in Iraq because we were more interested in important things like Britney Spears Meltdown '07-'08 or buying McHouses in McSuburbs we couldn't afford to take advantage of that red-hot real estate market of the early/mid-

'00s.

I didn't personally know anybody who died in the Iraq War, but the school upstairs from mine was rocked by it in '05 when an English teacher's son died...I think he would have been just about Adam's age now if he had lived. I did have an acquaintance I'll call Mike who was there. He was Mr. Funny Class Clown in high school, and he was our best runner. He had some jerky qualities to him, but Mike was overall a nice guy. Mike joined up with the army after he graduated from high school to pay for college. He didn't get hugely maimed in the war...he just lost a pinky or something or something like. But I'll never forget one night I ran into Mike at a bar...I think it was probably '08 or '09. Mike was so fucked up drunk that he could barely stand...I remember saying to him, "Dude, please don't die in Iraq." (In my defense, I was 22 or 23 and very drunk, so tact wasn't easy to come by.) Mike looked at me, and said, "I honestly don't care if I die."

I will never forget that. Ever. Seeing this guy who had been so damned full of life and jokes at 17 turn into this alcoholic who could look me straight in the eye and say he doesn't care about dying shocked the hell out of me, and it made my own problems like whether or not I could pass math class seem so small in comparison.

I've followed his postings on FB and it seems like he's gotten his life together- he's sober and has a girlfriend, from what I've gleaned...but god, what he must have gone through to have gotten to the point he was at a couple of years ago.

Mike got a second chance and did well with it...it's just such a damn shame that this 33-year old guy is basically already done with his life. Tomas Young truly is a sacrificial lamb to the Hailburton war complex that gripped the world during the Dubya Years.