We mourn the dead. We protest the war and we work for peace. But all too often, we forget those who come home in pain. Please remember those whose bodies, minds, and hearts have been broken by the warring of our nation. The following stories are meditations on the horror that is our current reality, reminders for an awakened collective conscience.... - Roger Straw, websteward

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(7/21/07), [J. Shapiro, The Wichita Eagle]
Perhaps someday, Staff Sgt. Jerrod L. Hays will be able to drive or watch TV without everything looking blurry.

Five months ago, shrapnel struck his eye when his Humvee was hit by two bombs in Qasim, Iraq. One of his best friends, Staff Sgt. David R. Berry, died instantly when the second bomb went off.

..For a while Hays couldn't see anything. Three surgeries later, he can make out facial features while wearing extra-thick glasses. Doctors are optimistic that with more surgeries the Wellington guardsman can someday regain part of his sight.

Sixteen percent of soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan have suffered severe vision loss, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. That's roughly 4,000 to 6,000 service members with some degree of sight damage since 2004, said Randolph Cabral, executive director of the Kansas Braille Transcription Institute in Wichita.

Iraq serviceman Dustin Howell (center) with World War II veteran Jack Shapiro (left) and BVA Past National President Neil Appleby, 08/19/06, Buffalo, NY.

Hays has been invited along with 20 other recently blinded service members to attend a charitable benefit hosted by the institute and the Blinded Veterans Association on Saturday in Wichita.

The Association's Operation Peer Support joins recently blinded service members with blinded veterans of past wars... (continued...)

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New York Times joins the peace movement with powerful editorial
EDITORIAL
The Road Home

Published: July 8, 2007

It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit.

Like many Americans, we have put off that conclusion, waiting for a sign that President Bush was seriously trying to dig the United States out of the disaster he created by invading Iraq without sufficient cause, in the face of global opposition, and without a plan to stabilize the country afterward.

At first, we believed that after destroying Iraq’s government, army, police and economic structures, the United States was obliged to try to accomplish some of the goals Mr. Bush claimed to be pursuing, chiefly building a stable, unified Iraq. When it became clear that the president had neither the vision nor the means to do that, we argued against setting a withdrawal date while there was still some chance to mitigate the chaos that would most likely follow.

While Mr. Bush scorns deadlines, he kept promising breakthroughs — after elections, after a constitution, after sending in thousands more troops. But those milestones came and went without any progress toward a stable, democratic Iraq or a path for withdrawal. It is frighteningly clear that Mr. Bush’s plan is to stay the course as long as he is president and dump the mess on his successor. Whatever his cause was, it is lost. (...continued...)