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Another Good US Kid, Wasted, ....For What?

WoodPeckr

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......as Bush's Iraqi Crusade blunders on, the bodybags return home......


Who Killed Young Cody Wentz?
By PAUL CAMPOS
Dec 15, 2004, 07:41

Last July, Lloyd Omdahl got a letter from a kid named Cody Wentz. Omdahl, a political scientist and a former lieutenant governor of North Dakota, had written a newspaper column about the misuse of the National Guard.

The Guard, Omdahl explained, was full of young people from modest backgrounds who had joined to help finance otherwise unaffordable dreams of a college education. Originally intended to be sent into combat only in times of national emergency, under-trained and ill-equipped Guard units were now being shipped to Iraq.

Young people who joined the Guard, Omdahl wrote, "had bargained for weekend training and emergency duty, such as fighting floods, policing events and serving as a community resource; but not for extended months of combat."

Omdahl's column eventually found its way to Cody Wentz, a recent high school graduate from Williston, N.D., who had joined the Guard at age 17, and who was now serving in Iraq. Wentz's letter, says Omdahl, "reflected a sense of betrayal and abandonment."

Wentz described how he was assigned to travel up and down the highway looking for roadside bombs. This is one of the most dangerous missions in Iraq - but instead of an armored vehicle, Wentz and his fellow soldiers were given a gravel truck insulated with boxes of sand.

Wentz had told his family nothing about the situation. "I don't want to worry them," he explained, "because to me that is the worst part - having loved ones worry about us."

Wentz had just turned down his first opportunity to go on leave: "We knew everyone wasn't going to get leave, so I figured I was young, with no girlfriend or real need to go home. So I volunteered not to go, so someone else could."

Wentz's letter contained one request: "I hope you don't forget about us, because your writing can help people realize the reality of the situation."

Here are a few things that those who cared for Cody Wentz haven't forgotten.

As a child, Cody loved the classic hot rod cars of the 1960s and 1970s, and he learned everything he could about them. But his greatest love was football, which he both played and studied with all the passionate enthusiasm of youth.

Cody's ultimate dream was to play in the NFL. Still, he was a sensible kid, who realized that was a long shot. So all through high school he saved money by working as a waiter at various Williston restaurants. Then, in the fall of his senior year, he enlisted in the Guard. The Guard would help finance the college education that one day would allow him to become a registered nurse, or perhaps even an anesthesiologist.

Spc. Cody Wentz was killed on Nov. 4, on the roads north of Baghdad, while serving with Company A of the 141st Engineer Combat Battalion. An improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle.

Who killed Cody Wentz? Iraqi insurgents? The combat-dodging Ivy League cowards who sent him into battle on a gravel truck? The voters who support the Iraq war but oppose paying for it? The secretary of defense who expects our soldiers to dig through scrap heaps in search of improvised armor? Or those, like me, who oppose this war but have done nothing to stop it?

"I could not dig, I dared not rob
And so I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue,
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale will serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?"


Rudyard Kipling, "A Dead Statesman"
 

danmand

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An extremely sad story indeed as always when when a person dies young.

Don't forget either, though, that for each tragic death of a US soldier, 100 Iraqis dies also. Each and every one is tragic and utterly unnecessary.
 

The Baroness

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While its tragic that young people die, and even worse when they die because they are given sub-standard equipment but it also amazes me that they have the nerve to bitch about being sent into combat when they only joined to get a free education......Yah, it sucks when you have to hold up your end of the bargain, doesnt it?





Let the flames begin.
 

red

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Nov 13, 2001
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the question really is - what was he told when he joined the National Guard- was he told he could be sent overseas to fight? probably not. He could have joined the army if thats what he was looking for- the article says that guard units typically don't go into combat- their purpose is stay in the states- helping out in civil emergencies. for that - they get paid shit and have to give years of their lives- but yes it entitles them to a scholarship to a state funded university or college- its not alot of money but it helps the poor.

that being said- GI's have the right to complain, though they have to follow orders- as this young lad did. he didn't avoid duty in iraq and he even turned down his chance for leave.
 

WoodPeckr

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red said:
did rumsfield ever serve?
Rummy is one of the very few in Bush's Administration who did serve. Most of Bush's people are bona fide Chickenhawks or one who is enthusiastic about war, provided someone else fights it; one who talks tough but when it was their turn to serve in the military, they opted to avoid active service at all costs by whatever means they could, deferments, medical, cushy Nat Guard slots, family/political connections, etc.

Here's a rather complete listing of GWB's neocon Chickenhawks along with others that actually had the balls to wear the Uniform:
I thought the funniest way to get out of military service was used by Rush Limbaugh who got a medical exemption for Anal Cysts!

http://www.awolbush.com/whoserved.html
http://www.symbolman.com/chickenhawks.html

Back to Rummy:

Mr. Rumsfeld attended Princeton University on academic and NROTC scholarships (A.B., 1954) and served in the U.S. Navy (1954-57) as an aviator and flight instructor. In 1957, he transferred to the Ready Reserve and continued his Naval service in flying and administrative assignments as a drilling reservist until 1975. He transferred to the Standby Reserve when he became Secretary of Defense in 1975 and to the Retired Reserve with the rank of Captain in 1989.
 

antaeus

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any tear-jerker individual story out of war is quite often shown to be fiction, planted and released in support of something - conspiricies abound as to what. Quite often on discovery it's explained away as "true in essence, if not fact", whatever that means.

Give it 10+ years after cessation that some true stories of individualism come out, of all experiences and emotions.
 

danmand

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antaeus said:
any tear-jerker individual story out of war is quite often shown to be fiction, planted and released in support of something - conspiricies abound as to what. Quite often on discovery it's explained away as "true in essence, if not fact", whatever that means.

Give it 10+ years after cessation that some true stories of individualism come out, of all experiences and emotions.
Are you claiming that he is still alive? That is the only thing that matters, really.
 

antaeus

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Alive, dead, fictional or real: I have no idea. Think big, not small, don't be led by a manipulative profit-driven media linked to agenda-driven corporate, religious and governmental power brokers. I repeat, these individual tear-jerkers are usually false in toto, not false conclusions of factual incidences.

The only thing that matters is independant thought.
 

langeweile

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antaeus said:
Alive, dead, fictional or real: I have no idea. Think big, not small, don't be led by a manipulative profit-driven media linked to agenda-driven corporate, religious and governmental power brokers. I repeat, these individual tear-jerkers are usually false in toto, not false conclusions of factual incidences.

The only thing that matters is independant thought.
How do you really feel about these things???........LOL
 

red

you must be fk'n kid'g me
Nov 13, 2001
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antaeus said:
Alive, dead, fictional or real: I have no idea. Think big, not small, don't be led by a manipulative profit-driven media linked to agenda-driven corporate, religious and governmental power brokers. I repeat, these individual tear-jerkers are usually false in toto, not false conclusions of factual incidences.

The only thing that matters is independant thought.
well lets hear some then. Do you think guard units should be sent overseas to iraq? does it fit within their mandate? do soldiers have the right to complain? given the facts of the story, true or not, did the guardsman behave honourably and fulfill his side of the bargain?
 

djk

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the hobby needs more capitalism
*yawn*

More cheap political sniping.

Where's the tear-jerker stories about all the innocent civilians that died under Saddam's rule.

Cheers,

-djk
 

danmand

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djk said:
*yawn*

More cheap political sniping.

Where's the tear-jerker stories about all the innocent civilians that died under Saddam's rule.

Oh please, who is worried about civilians dying?
 

WoodPeckr

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danmand said:
Oh please, who is worried about civilians dying?
And when did neocons ever worry about civilians dying?......least of all non-western type civilians?? I doubt that mythical 'compassionate conservatism' applies to them.
 

papasmerf

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WoodPeckr said:
And when did neocons ever worry about civilians dying?......least of all non-western type civilians?? I doubt that mythical 'compassionate conservatism' applies to them.

Na we worry
that is why we wnt to keep the war off out land.
 

WoodPeckr

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papasmerf said:
Na we worry
that is why we wnt to keep the war off out land.
Methinks 9/11 has changed all that.

Welcome to GWB's AmeriKKKa .....his AmeriKKKa of perpetual war(s)!
 

papasmerf

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WoodPeckr said:
Methinks 9/11 has changed all that.

Welcome to GWB's AmeriKKKa .....his AmeriKKKa of perpetual war(s)!
How do you blame BUSH for 9/11??????????

That is as stupid as the jerk claiming the government blew up the towers
 

WoodPeckr

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papasmerf said:
How do you blame BUSH for 9/11??????????

That is as stupid as the jerk claiming the government blew up the towers
The 9/11 commission DID say in their report warnings to Bush about impending US attacks were ignored by Bush & Co.
 

papasmerf

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WoodPeckr said:
The 9/11 commission DID say in their report warnings to Bush about impending US attacks were ignored by Bush & Co.

Thought the report also said Clinton failed to act.


Had he acted there would have been no 9/11

Now what do you propose be done when you have at hand, intell that states on an unknown day, from an unknown place planes will be used to distroy an unknown target.
 
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