Paralyzed veteran Tomas Young, an outspoken critic of the Iraq war, wrote what he said was his final letter to former President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney before he dies in hospice.
In an interview with Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges, Young said he had made a decision to go into hospice care, to stop feeding and fade away, "instead of committing the conventional suicide." Normally, to enter hospice care a physician must determine that an individual has less than six months to live.
Then 22, Young was wounded in Sadr City in April 2004, only five days into his Iraq tour. One bullet severed his spine, another hit his knee. The native of Kansas City, Mo., was left wheelchair-bound, paralyzed from the chest down.
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His letter was published Wednesday on Truthdig.com.
"I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans . . . the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq . . . [and] the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives."
"I write this letter, my last letter, to you, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. I write not because I think you grasp the terrible human and moral consequences of your lies, manipulation and thirst for wealth and power. I write this letter because, before my own death, I want to make it clear that I, and hundreds of thousands of my fellow veterans, along with millions of my fellow citizens, along with hundreds of millions more in Iraq and the Middle East, know fully who you are and what you have done."
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"You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans — my fellow veterans —whose future you stole."
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