A letter to the president

To the commander in chief (2007),

Here is a response from a certified "war skeptic."

FUCK YOU!

Go to Iraq, get out of the Green Zone, and see what life is like for people in Iraq and for the soldiers you’ve sent there. Stay a few days—no quick photo op and back home. Be sure you drink the water.

Then go to Walter Reed Army Hospital and visit the ortho ward. Not just a quick little photo op, but stay there for a week. You can do it. You stay in Crawford for a week or more and the government keeps going. So go to Walter Reed—or better yet, go to a burn unit at a military hospital.
Don’t do the glad-handing politician bullshit. Go around and empty urine bags. Learn how to check I.V.’s. See if their pain meds are enough.
Hear the moans. See the disgusting sights. Smell the smell.

Then when you’re done, go to a V.A. hospital and ask to visit a "back ward." No photo op, here either, prez. Spend another week. See the guys from Nam and Gulf War I and who knows where else their government sent them. No photos. No talking. Just listen. And tend to them. Turn them in their beds to keep them from getting bed sores. Check their feeding tubes. Empty their colostomy bags.

THEN come back and say this war is worth one more person’s life or health or family.

Come back and tell us that if you can.

If you can’t, get the hell out of here.

Mike Ferner
US Navy Hospital Corpsman 69-73

www.mikeferner.org