She said, 'I can't.'
He said, 'You have to.' And she did. She lives closest to our parents. I'm the only child who lives very far away. She called me on her way to their house and told me not to call them as I do every morning with my 'checking on the Geezers.'
I called my brother and then waited to call our parents. I heard my father cry for the first time in my life.
Chase's body arrived at Dover where it remained for five days and was assessed for presentation at funeral. His face was blown completely off in the largest vehicular suicide bombing to that date. He came home with his head wrapped in gauze.
His death has changed our lives in ways that are too hard to describe.
Now, I'm going to read a portion of the op-ed that I wrote.
"let me tell you that my nephew Chase Comley did not die to preserve your freedoms. He was not presented flowers by grateful Iraqis, welcoming him as their liberator.
He died long after Bush, in his testosterone-charged, theatrical, soldier-for-a-day role announced on an aircraft carrier beneath a 'Mission Accomplished' banner that major combat was over.
He died in a country erupting into civil war and turned into a hellhole by Bush.
Have we won the hearts and the minds of the Iraqi people? Apparently not.
Consider what the money spent on this could have achieved for health care, our children's education or a true humanitarian intervention in Sudan.
And then think about Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld when he visits our troops. Picture his heavily armored vehicle, a machine impregnable to almost anything the insurgents toss in its path, while our troops are not provided sufficient armor to survive an IED.
Think of the mismanagement of this entire war effort. Consider what we've lost. Too much. Think of what we've gained. Nothing.
And think of someone who says, 'We will not cut and run,' but who did just that years ago when he was called.
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