The soldiers Bush didn't visit on Thanksgiving

By Joan Vennochi, 12/11/2003

THANKSGIVING in Baghdad was a political success for President Bush, and more. Even if the turkey he hoisted was chosen strictly for its photogenic qualities, the event showed the president connecting in a human way with men and women, far from home, in a place where life is blown apart in a cruel instant. Watching those young faces reminded all Americans, Bush backers or not, that war puts the country's flesh and blood on the line, not just its national pride or presidential politics.

For all that it conveyed, however, the Bush Thanksgiving extravaganza showed only one tiny slice of the daily, ugly reality of war and its aftermath for thousands of US service personnel and those who care for them...

"My `Bush Thanksgiving' was a little different . . . I spent it at the hospital taking care of a young West Point lieutenant wounded in Iraq. He had stabilization of his injuries in Iraq and then two long surgeries here for multiple injuries; he's just now stable enough to send back to the USA. After a few bites of dinner I let him sleep, and then cried with him as he woke up from a nightmare. When he pressed his fists into his eyes and rocked his head back and forth he looked like a little boy. They all do, all 19 on the ward that day, some missing limbs, eyes, or worse...

"It's too bad Mr. Bush didn't add us to his holiday agenda. The men said the same, but you'll never read that in the paper. Mr. President would rather lift fake turkeys for photo ops, it seems. Maybe because my patients wouldn't make very pleasant photos . . . most don't look all that great, and the ones with facial wounds and external fixation devices look downright scary. And a heck of a lot of them can't talk, anyway, and some never will talk again. . . Well, this is probably more than you want to know, but there's no spin on this one. It's pure carnage . . .

Howdy's support for the troops is limited to the high profile photo ops he gets at their expense. And no major US media outlet questioned the flummery and feel-good images from Howdy's visit to Iraq.