Yance T. Gray and Omar Mora, RIP

Right around the time I left for vacation an important op-ed piece came out in the New York Times. It was written by seven soldiers serving in Iraq. The op-ed piece, called "The War As We Saw It", was critical of the war effort.

It didn't get the attention it should have received among the chattering classes, given that the talk then was all about what Iraq experts were saying about the surge. One would have thought that these soldiers had earned the right to be taken seriously as experts on the war. But the conservatives couldn't discuss the op-ed at all because the soldiers were not happy with the way the war was going. I'm not quite sure why the liberals didn't discuss it much, but one reason given was the limited viewpoint of soldiers actually on the ground. They could only see what was going on in their immediate environment. But then that is true of every single dignitary sent to Iraq to see how the war effort is going, and at least the soldiers stay there for a while.

Some stay there forever. Yance T. Gray and Omar Mora were two of the seven writers of that op-ed piece. Now they are dead. Read the op-ed in their honor.