Tomas Young, veteran and critic of the Iraq War, dies at 34

[freebuddy]

Tomas Young, veteran and critic of the Iraq War, dies at 34

By Emily Langer

November 11 at 7:34

Tomas Young, an Army veteran who was paralyzed after being shot in the spine in Iraq and who later publicly denounced the war and the Bush administration officials who sent him to fight it, died Nov. 10 in Seattle. He was 34.

His wife, Claudia Cuellar Young, confirmed his death. An investigator with the King County medical examiners office said the determination of the cause is pending further tests.

Mr. Young belonged to the group known as Iraq Veterans Against the War and was featured on CBS Newss 60 Minutes, ABC News and Bill Moyerss public-affairs program. His story also was chronicled in Body of War (2007), a documentarydirected by talk-show host Phil Donahue and filmmaker Ellen Spiro.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Donahue described Mr. Young as an anti-war warrior who had the credibility of serving.

Mr. Young was a Kmart employee in Missouri when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. Days later, Mr. Young enlisted in the Army. I wanted to go to Afghanistan, he said on 60 Minutes, to seek some form of retribution on the people that did this to us.

Less than three years later, Mr. Young shipped out to Iraq. On April 4, 2004, the fifth day of his deployment, he was riding in what has been described as an unarmored, uncovered Humvee when his convoy came under attack in the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City.

A bullet struck Mr. Young near his left collarbone, severing his spinal cord. He recalled dropping his weapon and trying, without success, to move.

I spent the next few seconds trying to yell for anybody that was within earshot to take me out, he said, to make it so I wasnt going to be paralyzed for the rest of my life. But unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you look at it all that I could get out of my mouth was a very tiny, hoarse whisper. And so, nobody heard me.

Mr. Youngs wounds had left him paralyzed from the waist down. Several years later, complications from a pulmonary embolism would further erode his mobility and impair his speech.

Donahue met Mr. Young in a hospital bed at Walter Reed Army Medical Center during a visit to the military hospital with Ralph Nader, the consumer-rights advocate and independent presidential candidate who had opposed the Iraq invasion.

In their film, Donahue and Spiro juxtaposed Mr. Youngs daily physical anguish with the congressional roll-call votes authorizing the Iraq war. Some movie critics described the film as politically strident and as a jeremiad. Many praised its unflinching portrayal of the wars burden as it was carried by one soldier.

In the film, Mr. Young navigates life in a wheelchair. Unable to regulate his body temperature, he dons ice packs to prevent overheating when he goes outside. Preparing to marry, he and his fiancee worry that he might suffer a bowel accident on his wedding day. In one scene, Mrs. Youngs mother struggles to attend to his catheter.

In recent years, Mr. Youngs physical condition deteriorated severely. In early 2013, he announced that he would discontinue his feeding tube and medication. He wrote an open letter to former president George W. Bush and vice president Dick Cheney.

My day of reckoning is upon me, he said in the letter, posted on the Web site Truthdig. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live.

Several months later, Mr. Young decided that he was not ready to die. I want to spend as much time as possible with my wife, he told the Kansas City Star, and no decent son wants his obituary to read that he was survived by his mother.

Tomas Vincent Young was born Nov. 30, 1979, in Boise, Idaho, and grew up in Kansas City, Mo. He had joined the Army before his 2001 enlistment but was discharged because of a shoulder problem. His brother also served in Iraq.

I spend a lot of time saying how proud I am of Nathan for going to Iraq and fighting his war and telling Tomas how proud I am of his staying home and fighting his war, their mother told an interviewer.

His first marriage, to Brie Townsend, ended in divorce. Survivors include his second wife, whom he met in 2008 and married in 2012, of Seattle; his mother, Cathy Smith of Kansas City; his father, Thomas Young of Frederick, Md.; his brother, Nathan Young of Oklahoma City; a half-sister, Lisa Harper, and a half brother, Tim Weaver, both of Kansas City; his grandmothers, Inge Young of Boise and Geneva Wallen of Kansas City; and a great-grandmother, Dorotha Hart of Osceola, Mo.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/tomas-young-veteran-and-critic-of-the-iraq-war-dies-at-34/2014/11/11/ec2e2b8a-69b2-11e4-a31c-77759fc1eacc_story.html

[Gross-Misconduct]

Didnt Tom Cruise play this guy in a movie once?

[freebuddy]

Didnt Tom Cruise play this guy in a movie once?

That was Ron Kovic, a Vietnam veteran.

[Where's Wellwood]

Tomas Young, veteran and critic of the Iraq War, dies at 34

By Emily Langer

November 11 at 7:34

Tomas Young, an Army veteran who was paralyzed after being shot in the spine in Iraq and who later publicly denounced the war and the Bush administration officials who sent him to fight it, died Nov. 10 in Seattle. He was 34.

His wife, Claudia Cuellar Young, confirmed his death. An investigator with the King County medical examiners office said the determination of the cause is pending further tests.

Mr. Young belonged to the group known as Iraq Veterans Against the War and was featured on CBS Newss 60 Minutes, ABC News and Bill Moyerss public-affairs program. His story also was chronicled in Body of War (2007), a documentarydirected by talk-show host Phil Donahue and filmmaker Ellen Spiro.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Donahue described Mr. Young as an anti-war warrior who had the credibility of serving.

Mr. Young was a Kmart employee in Missouri when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. Days later, Mr. Young enlisted in the Army. I wanted to go to Afghanistan, he said on 60 Minutes, to seek some form of retribution on the people that did this to us.

Less than three years later, Mr. Young shipped out to Iraq. On April 4, 2004, the fifth day of his deployment, he was riding in what has been described as an unarmored, uncovered Humvee when his convoy came under attack in the Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City.

A bullet struck Mr. Young near his left collarbone, severing his spinal cord. He recalled dropping his weapon and trying, without success, to move.

I spent the next few seconds trying to yell for anybody that was within earshot to take me out, he said, to make it so I wasnt going to be paralyzed for the rest of my life. But unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you look at it all that I could get out of my mouth was a very tiny, hoarse whisper. And so, nobody heard me.

Mr. Youngs wounds had left him paralyzed from the waist down. Several years later, complications from a pulmonary embolism would further erode his mobility and impair his speech.

Donahue met Mr. Young in a hospital bed at Walter Reed Army Medical Center during a visit to the military hospital with Ralph Nader, the consumer-rights advocate and independent presidential candidate who had opposed the Iraq invasion.

In their film, Donahue and Spiro juxtaposed Mr. Youngs daily physical anguish with the congressional roll-call votes authorizing the Iraq war. Some movie critics described the film as politically strident and as a jeremiad. Many praised its unflinching portrayal of the wars burden as it was carried by one soldier.

In the film, Mr. Young navigates life in a wheelchair. Unable to regulate his body temperature, he dons ice packs to prevent overheating when he goes outside. Preparing to marry, he and his fiancee worry that he might suffer a bowel accident on his wedding day. In one scene, Mrs. Youngs mother struggles to attend to his catheter.

In recent years, Mr. Youngs physical condition deteriorated severely. In early 2013, he announced that he would discontinue his feeding tube and medication. He wrote an open letter to former president George W. Bush and vice president Dick Cheney.

My day of reckoning is upon me, he said in the letter, posted on the Web site Truthdig. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live.

Several months later, Mr. Young decided that he was not ready to die. I want to spend as much time as possible with my wife, he told the Kansas City Star, and no decent son wants his obituary to read that he was survived by his mother.

Tomas Vincent Young was born Nov. 30, 1979, in Boise, Idaho, and grew up in Kansas City, Mo. He had joined the Army before his 2001 enlistment but was discharged because of a shoulder problem. His brother also served http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/tomas-young-veteran-and-critic-of-the-iraq-war-dies-at-34/2014/11/11/ec2e2b8a-69b2-11e4-a31c-77759fc1eacc_story.html Iraq.

I spend a lot of time saying how proud I am of Nathan for going to Iraq and fighting his war and telling Tomas how proud I am of his staying home and fighting his war, their mother told an interviewer.

His first marriage, to Brie Townsend, ended in divorce. Survivors include his second wife, whom he met in 2008 and married in 2012, of Seattle; his mother, Cathy Smith of Kansas City; his father, Thomas Young of Frederick, Md.; his brother, Nathan Young of Oklahoma City; a half-sister, Lisa Harper, and a half brother, Tim Weaver, both of Kansas City; his grandmothers, Inge Young of Boise and Geneva Wallen of Kansas City; and a great-grandmother, Dorotha Hart of Osceola, Mo.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/tomas-young-veteran-and-critic-of-the-iraq-war-dies-at-34/2014/11/11/ec2e2b8a-69b2-11e4-a31c-77759fc1eacc_story.html

Am I reading that wrong or did he blame Bush and Cheney for the condition he was left in after he was injured in Iraq, when he chose to enlist in the army? Or is he blaming Bush and Cheney for choosing to go to war?

He's described as an anti-war warrior with the credibility of serving. Okay, I guess it adds credibility to his stance on war that he served, but if you're anti-war, don't go fight in a war, then blame others for how terrible your quality of life is because of your injuries. It wasn't like he was already in the military and got deployed. He worked at a Kmart and chose to enlist.

I'm assuming he was anti-war before he enlisted. If he wasn't, and he only became anti-war because of his injuries and how much war sucked, then I have no sympathy for him. He should have realized that if you choose to go to war, what happened to him was a possibility.

[freebuddy]

Am I reading that wrong or did he blame Bush and Cheney for the condition he was left in after he was injured in Iraq, when he chose to enlist in the army? Or is he blaming Bush and Cheney for choosing to go to war?

He's described as an anti-war warrior with the credibility of serving. Okay, I guess it adds credibility to his stance on war that he served, but if you're anti-war, don't go fight in a war, then blame others for how terrible your quality of life is because of your injuries. It wasn't like he was already in the military and got deployed. He worked at a Kmart and chose to enlist.

I'm assuming he was anti-war before he enlisted. If he wasn't, and he only became anti-war because of his injuries and how much war sucked, then I have no sympathy for him. He should have realized that if you choose to go to war, what happened to him was a possibility.

He was motivated by his patriotism to fight for what he thought was right, and found out differently, there's no great mystery there. Kinda like what happened with Pat Tillman.

[nuck nit]

Nothing like dying for the globalists.

Same as it ever was.

[Ghostsof1915]

Scapegoats of the Empire.

Same as it ever was.

[Gurn]

He wanted to go to Afghanistan to fight and find Bin Laden but his government sent him into Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with 9/11

[Dittohead]

When you sign up with the military you sign away your life. You could just as easily get killed in training than fighting in a war.

S!

[Offensive Threat]

When you sign up with the military you sign away your life. You could just as easily get killed in training than fighting in a war.

S!

For the US forces its friendly fire you have to worry about. In desert storm more US tanks got knocked out by friendly fire than the enemy. Too many guys on the trigger play it like a video game. Its one thing to fear the opposition in front of you but to also have to fear the idiots behind you is a bit much.

[Mr. Ambien]

For the US forces its friendly fire you have to worry about. In desert storm more US tanks got knocked out by friendly fire than the enemy. Too many guys on the trigger play it like a video game. Its one thing to fear the opposition in front of you but to also have to fear the idiots behind you is a bit much.

This is why the US government-run FPS games always have the friendly fire setting to "on".