{"id":141776,"date":"2014-11-11T14:01:28","date_gmt":"2014-11-11T14:01:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=141776"},"modified":"2014-11-11T14:01:28","modified_gmt":"2014-11-11T14:01:28","slug":"iraq-war-veteran-outspoken-war-critic-tomas-young-dead-34","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/war-terrorism\/iraq-war-veteran-outspoken-war-critic-tomas-young-dead-34\/","title":{"rendered":"Iraq War Veteran, Outspoken War Critic Tomas Young Dead at 34"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>On how he wanted to be remembered: &#8216;I fought as hard as I could to keep another me from coming back to Iraq&#8217;<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Andrea Germanos<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field__items\">\n<div class=\"field__item even\">\n<p>Iraq war veteran and outspoken Iraq war critic Tomas Young has died at the age of 34.<\/p>\n<p><em>Democracy Now!<\/em> reported his death Monday, the eve of Veterans Day.<\/p>\n<p>Young enlisted in the Army following the September 11 attacks, volunteering to go to Afghanistan. He was sent to Iraq, and was left paralyzed by a bullet on the fifth day of his deployment. In 2008, he <a href=\"http:\/\/www.democracynow.org\/2008\/3\/25\/paralyzed_iraq_vet_responds_to_cheney%20\">explained<\/a> that &#8220;many of us volunteered with patriotic feelings in our heart, only to see them subverted and bastardized by the administration and sent into the wrong country.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Young was the subject of the award-wining documentary <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bodyofwar.com\/\"><em>Body of War<\/em><\/a> by Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro.<\/p>\n<p>In 2013 Young <a href=\"http:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/news\/2014\/11\/11\/%20\/news\/2013\/03\/21\/dying-iraq-war-veteran-tomas-young-reads-last-letter-president-bush-and-dick-cheney\">wrote<\/a> &#8220;The Last Letter: A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran.&#8221; From the letter:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>You may evade justice but in our eyes you are each guilty of egregious war crimes, of plunder and, finally, of murder, including the murder of thousands of young Americans\u2013my fellow veterans\u2013whose future you stole.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Asked by <em>Democracy Now!<\/em> last year how he would want to be remembered, he said: &#8220;That I fought as hard as I could to keep young men and women away from military service. I fought as hard as I could to keep another me from coming back to Iraq.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Watch Young reading his letter to Bush and Cheney below:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.democracynow.org\/embed\/blog\/2013\/3\/21\/exclusive_tomas_young_reads_in_full_his_letter_to_bush_cheney_a_message_from_a_dying_veteran\" width=\"690\" height=\"388\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"field-wrapper-copyright-cond\" class=\"field-wrapper content-container clearfix\">\n<div class=\"field field--name-field-copyright field--type-text field--label-hidden\">\n<div class=\"field__items\">\n<div class=\"field__item even\"><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/news\/2014\/11\/11\/iraq-war-veteran-outspoken-war-critic-tomas-young-dead-34\" target=\"_blank\">This piece<\/a> was reprinted by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rinf.com\" target=\"_blank\">RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On how he wanted to be remembered: &#8216;I fought as hard as I could to keep another me from coming back to Iraq&#8217; Andrea Germanos Iraq war veteran and outspoken Iraq war critic Tomas Young has died at the age of 34. Democracy Now! reported his death Monday, the eve of Veterans Day. Young enlisted [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":141777,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,16],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-141776","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-war-terrorism"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}