Sherwood was a soldier. At least for the last few months of his life, when his National Guard unit was activated. Politics is high stakes, especially for the ones who look beyond it to make the simple sacrifice of serving their country.
Most of Sherwood's 30 years were spent as a big brother, son, father and husband. He was also a member of the PA Army National Guard. Called into service in 2004, he was protecting the Iraq Survey Group as they looked for WMD, even after our President made a big joke out of the fact they did not exist.
This wasn't funny to my brother, who, at the time of these remarks, e-mailed us and asked that we send him and his men food. Peanut butter. Tuna Fish. Bottles of water.
We never had a chance to let our outrage over this failure manifest itself. Instead, we were left to bury Sherwood. He was killed two weeks after he sent that e-mail when a paint factory exploded. The mission had been aborted several times before because of safety concerns. Under the direction of a British Captain, they went looking for WMD. Sherwood saved lives, I'm told, of soldiers and an Iraqi translator.
That was over three years ago. Now, in light of Ari Fleischer's latest propaganda campaign to continue the unabated bloodshed, I'm seeing my big brother out there again--his sacrifice somehow becoming a reason for more sacrifice, his death used to justify more death. It doesn't make sense to me, and it wouldn't make sense to Sher, either.
Fleischer has enlisted wounded soldiers and Gold Star Families to peddle fear in ads meant to continue support for the war in the face of a potential lack luster report due to Congress in 2 weeks.
This is more of the same: images of 9/11, they attacked us, be afraid, be very afraid. Their main point: Al Qaeda. Does Fleischer even know who our primary military targets and threats in Iraq are? Does he know the actual amount of foreign Al Qaeda members in Iraq?
It doesn't matter. It didn't matter to him in 2003, when he told lie after lie selling this war to the American public. It doesn't matter now. This is about ideology for him, not humanity.
I couldn't stomach to watch the ads--for days--but having done so, the only appropriate response seemed to be our own video, hopefully making the truth, as we know it, painfully clear: