thedrifter
12-06-06, 03:17 PM
Wednesday, December 6, 2006
Marine’s dad blasts handling of war
By Craig S. Semon TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
STURBRIDGE— John E. Booth is upset about the Iraq war, not just because he lost his son but because he feels the war is being mishandled.
His son, Marine 1st Lt. Joshua L. Booth, 23, of Sturbridge, a platoon leader in the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, Echo Company, was deployed in September to AnBar Province in Iraq. Before his deployment, he was stationed at the Marine Corps base in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii. He was killed Oct. 17 by a sniper’s bullet in Haditha, Iraq.
Mr. Booth said he doesn’t solely blame the sniper for taking his son’s life, but also two key members in the Bush administration. He feels the hands of Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld are stained with the blood of his son and other service men and women.
“While it was an American-hating, jihadist, Islamic-terrorist sniper that pulled the trigger that killed my son, it was the arrogant, spineless, cowardly policies of the Cheney-Rumsfeld team that set him up as an erect, immobile target,” Mr. Booth said. “I pray that we as a people do not so uselessly bleed our young dry ever again. As Gen. Douglas MacArthur once said, ‘Only the dead have seen the end of war, but when we commit our men to battle in war there is no substitute for victory.’ In this case, obviously, victory was never defined.”
Mr. Booth categorizes himself as “a 30-year, hard-core Reagan conservative” and “an ardent supporter of the Bush administration and our efforts since Sept. 11.” He said he doesn’t blame President Bush, nor does he believe that there would be any good from bringing to light the mistakes that Mr. Bush has made.
Mr. Booth said he wants the new Senate to call upon Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Cheney to explain their “mismanagement of the war.”
He said he had these strong convictions long before his son was killed in combat.
“From the beginning of the Iraqi occupation, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld has espoused a policy of overpromising and underdelivering to our nation,” Mr. Booth said. “This approach served many purposes. We were able to depose the dictator and pursue terrorists. The GOP was able to preach every two years that it would be unpatriotic to not support the troops. This allowed Karl Rove and his associates to vilify their political opponents when the fruitlessness of the Cheney-Rumsfeld policies were exposed. My pleasure over the repudiation by my countrymen of the Cheney-Rumsfeld ‘stay the course’ mantra is only tempered by the fact that it came three weeks too late to save my son.”
Mr. Booth said it’s time to tell the truth based on what he knows of his son and what his son confided in him. He said his son told him in August that he intended to complete his mission in Iraq and bring all of his Marines home. Through his training, the young lieutenant told his father, he had come to the harsh realization that it was highly probable that he would not return.
“I questioned Josh on this and he told me that he would not lead his Marines from the rear,” Mr. Booth said. “He would lead them face and eyes front on point and that the nature of the mission would bring great peril. He asked me to be a male influence for his children and to tell them about the dad that they would never know.”
Lt. Booth spoke to his father three times via satellite phone while in Iraq. In each conversation, Mr. Booth said, his son’s voice sounded “more tired and more tired.”
Mr. Booth said the sniper who killed his son had been “a thorn in the side” of the battalion that had preceded his son’s unit. In the month that 1st Lt. Booth was in Iraq, four of his Marines were hit and wounded by this sniper.
“In the meantime, Josh’s company CO reported to me that Josh and his platoon gathered more intelligence on insurgents and their weapons caches than had been gathered in the six previous months,” Mr. Booth said. “The enemies of our country would not allow this to continue.”
At 11:45 a.m. Iraqi time Oct. 17, the “thorn in the side” killed Mr. Booth’s son.
“That sniper shot my 23-year-old son in the face,” Mr. Booth said. “Joshua leaves his parents (Mr. Booth and Debra L. Booth), whose lives are wrecked forever, his 21-year-old widow (Erica), as well as an 18-month-old daughter (Grace) and a son (Tristan Joshua) not yet born.”
Mr. Booth said the Democrats who recently won control of the House and Senate should not use the “mishandling of the war” for political gain, but to actually fix the problem before it is too late. Although he hopes the Democrats will do the right thing, Mr. Booth said, he still has his doubts.
“I hope that the process that moves forward now is not a repetition of what the Bush administration has foisted upon us,” Mr. Booth said.
In addition to his strong accusations, Mr. Booth is now asking some hard-hitting questions to higher-ups in the government.
Mr. Booth said his son told him that enemy activity had increased daily in intensity since his arrival, and he described how the first casualties of the deployment were a result of enemy mortar fire. When Mr. Booth asked his son if his platoon counterfired, his son told him the company had been deployed to Iraq without their mortars. Mr. Booth said when he asked why, “Josh said their mission was designed to meet with the Iraqi people face to face, establish good relations and gather intelligence.”
Mr. Booth said he wants to know why Marines were sent into harm’s way without their mortars and why his son was leading three patrols a day without the pilotless drones that the U.S. Army has used with great effectiveness in Afghanistan.
Mr. Booth is still waiting for answers.
Ellie
Marine’s dad blasts handling of war
By Craig S. Semon TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
STURBRIDGE— John E. Booth is upset about the Iraq war, not just because he lost his son but because he feels the war is being mishandled.
His son, Marine 1st Lt. Joshua L. Booth, 23, of Sturbridge, a platoon leader in the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, Echo Company, was deployed in September to AnBar Province in Iraq. Before his deployment, he was stationed at the Marine Corps base in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii. He was killed Oct. 17 by a sniper’s bullet in Haditha, Iraq.
Mr. Booth said he doesn’t solely blame the sniper for taking his son’s life, but also two key members in the Bush administration. He feels the hands of Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld are stained with the blood of his son and other service men and women.
“While it was an American-hating, jihadist, Islamic-terrorist sniper that pulled the trigger that killed my son, it was the arrogant, spineless, cowardly policies of the Cheney-Rumsfeld team that set him up as an erect, immobile target,” Mr. Booth said. “I pray that we as a people do not so uselessly bleed our young dry ever again. As Gen. Douglas MacArthur once said, ‘Only the dead have seen the end of war, but when we commit our men to battle in war there is no substitute for victory.’ In this case, obviously, victory was never defined.”
Mr. Booth categorizes himself as “a 30-year, hard-core Reagan conservative” and “an ardent supporter of the Bush administration and our efforts since Sept. 11.” He said he doesn’t blame President Bush, nor does he believe that there would be any good from bringing to light the mistakes that Mr. Bush has made.
Mr. Booth said he wants the new Senate to call upon Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Cheney to explain their “mismanagement of the war.”
He said he had these strong convictions long before his son was killed in combat.
“From the beginning of the Iraqi occupation, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld has espoused a policy of overpromising and underdelivering to our nation,” Mr. Booth said. “This approach served many purposes. We were able to depose the dictator and pursue terrorists. The GOP was able to preach every two years that it would be unpatriotic to not support the troops. This allowed Karl Rove and his associates to vilify their political opponents when the fruitlessness of the Cheney-Rumsfeld policies were exposed. My pleasure over the repudiation by my countrymen of the Cheney-Rumsfeld ‘stay the course’ mantra is only tempered by the fact that it came three weeks too late to save my son.”
Mr. Booth said it’s time to tell the truth based on what he knows of his son and what his son confided in him. He said his son told him in August that he intended to complete his mission in Iraq and bring all of his Marines home. Through his training, the young lieutenant told his father, he had come to the harsh realization that it was highly probable that he would not return.
“I questioned Josh on this and he told me that he would not lead his Marines from the rear,” Mr. Booth said. “He would lead them face and eyes front on point and that the nature of the mission would bring great peril. He asked me to be a male influence for his children and to tell them about the dad that they would never know.”
Lt. Booth spoke to his father three times via satellite phone while in Iraq. In each conversation, Mr. Booth said, his son’s voice sounded “more tired and more tired.”
Mr. Booth said the sniper who killed his son had been “a thorn in the side” of the battalion that had preceded his son’s unit. In the month that 1st Lt. Booth was in Iraq, four of his Marines were hit and wounded by this sniper.
“In the meantime, Josh’s company CO reported to me that Josh and his platoon gathered more intelligence on insurgents and their weapons caches than had been gathered in the six previous months,” Mr. Booth said. “The enemies of our country would not allow this to continue.”
At 11:45 a.m. Iraqi time Oct. 17, the “thorn in the side” killed Mr. Booth’s son.
“That sniper shot my 23-year-old son in the face,” Mr. Booth said. “Joshua leaves his parents (Mr. Booth and Debra L. Booth), whose lives are wrecked forever, his 21-year-old widow (Erica), as well as an 18-month-old daughter (Grace) and a son (Tristan Joshua) not yet born.”
Mr. Booth said the Democrats who recently won control of the House and Senate should not use the “mishandling of the war” for political gain, but to actually fix the problem before it is too late. Although he hopes the Democrats will do the right thing, Mr. Booth said, he still has his doubts.
“I hope that the process that moves forward now is not a repetition of what the Bush administration has foisted upon us,” Mr. Booth said.
In addition to his strong accusations, Mr. Booth is now asking some hard-hitting questions to higher-ups in the government.
Mr. Booth said his son told him that enemy activity had increased daily in intensity since his arrival, and he described how the first casualties of the deployment were a result of enemy mortar fire. When Mr. Booth asked his son if his platoon counterfired, his son told him the company had been deployed to Iraq without their mortars. Mr. Booth said when he asked why, “Josh said their mission was designed to meet with the Iraqi people face to face, establish good relations and gather intelligence.”
Mr. Booth said he wants to know why Marines were sent into harm’s way without their mortars and why his son was leading three patrols a day without the pilotless drones that the U.S. Army has used with great effectiveness in Afghanistan.
Mr. Booth is still waiting for answers.
Ellie