"It is only the dead who have seen the end of war." -Plato
Rest in peace, guys.

FAREWELLS TO HEROES

A horse-drawn carriage bearing Cpl. Joseph Anzack's casket will travel from Rice Mortuary to the South High Football Stadium today at 4 p.m. The services will be at 5:30 p.m.

THE SERVICE

What: Public memorial service for Cpl. Joseph Anzack Jr.
When: 5:30 p.m. today 06/01/07
Where: South High School football stadium, 4801 Pacific Coast Highway, Torrance

ONLINE

Live coverage of the procession and service will be available at KNBC starting about 4p.m.

BACKGROUND

Anzack, who graduated from South High in 2005, will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery. His unit was ambushed while patrolling south of Baghdad and he was taken prisoner. His body was found floating in the Euphrates River on May 23,11 days after he was first missing in action.

Services for U.S. Army Pfc. Daniel Cagle of Del Aire will be Sunday at Los Angeles National Cemetery at 11 a.m. 950 S. Sepulveda Blvd., near Wilshire Boulevard.
Cagle, 22, will be buried with full military honors. Cagle died May 23 while fighting in Iraq when a bomb exploded as he entered a home in a search for insurgents near Ramadi.

I did not know Daniel Cagle or Joseph Anzack Jr. I mourn them nonetheless. I mourn the senseless loss of two lives before they had even begun to really live them. California is leading the nation in military casualties from the war with 362 Californians out of the 3,474 Americans killed. For ten days, friends and family and local people watched and waited for some word of the kidnapped Anzack. Ten days of what was, I'm sure, excruciating waiting and unknowingness. Ten days before the the ultimate pain of learning that a son, a friend, was dead in a war that he had no vote about. Yes, these young men chose to enlist knowing that they might be sent to war. In our country this makes one a hero. I'm sure that cold comfort to his parents who will never see him grow into the man he might have become. Cold comfort indeed.

THOU SHALT NOT KILL

As Mr. Bush has repeatedly stated that he is a good Christian man and his policies follow his faith, I remind him of this simple dictum from his religion. You shall not murder. There are no caveats to this command. Yet, daily the blood of more Americans in on your hands. Whether you kill them with you own hands or order their deaths by sending them into a war we have no business fighting they are ultimately the same. You, Mr. Bush, are a murderer. You have broken one of the major laws of your religion and of the civilised world at large. You have caused pain and suffering for thousands of American families. For ten days, the Anzack family lived in torture, but they are just one of many in this small community. Here the names of the others you have murdered:
David T. Toomalatai, 19, of Carson; Ryan L. Mayhan, 25, of Hawthorne; Micah Gifford, 27, of Torrance; Fernando D. Robinson, 21, of Hawthorne; Rex "Chris" Kenyon, 34, of El Segundo; Ricardo A. Crocker, 39, of Torrance; Sean Lee Brock, 29, of Redondo Beach; Sergio Diaz Varela, 21, of Lomita; Edgar Daclan, 24, of Carson; Brian Wood, 21, of Torrance; Jose Gutierrez, 22, of Lomita; and Daniel Cagle, 23, of Del Aire.

It's time to put down your toys, Mr. Bush. Put away your guns and your bombs and realize that you are playing with human lives and not little plastic army men on a map. It's time to face yourself and your psychotic need for power and control. It's time to realize YOU HAVE KILLED and you will have to stand before your god on your death and account for your actions. How will you explain yourself?

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