Mom Of One Of Dead Soldiers Who Penned Critical Op-Ed Speaks Out
September 12, 2007 -- 10:20 AM EST // //

Greg Mitchell notes that the Galveston County Daily News, a small paper in Texas, has an interview today with the mother of Omar Mora, one of the soldiers who died in Iraq yesterday after penning that riveting Times Op ed last month expressing pessimism about the war.

Mora's mom, Olga Capetillo, confirms that he co-wrote the piece and adds some wrenching detail to the story in her interview with the little paper.

For instance, Mora's 15-month deployment was nearing its end. His tour of duty was marked with some horrific moments:

The Capetillos last saw their son in April, when he was on leave after a roadside bomb damaged his ears and left one of his friends without an arm. He eventually redeployed, and in August saw another friend shot in the head, a wound that later killed him, the Capetillos said.

Mora apparently undertook to write the Op-ed out of despair with the way things were going in Iraq:

Olga Capetillo said that by the time Mora submitted the editorial, he had grown increasingly depressed.

“I told him God is going to take care of him and take him home,” she said. “But yesterday is the darkest day for me.”

Mora also felt that the Op-ed had been misunderstood as a call for withdrawal by some antiwar people, though in the Op-ed he and his fellow soldiers wrote that the war had become the "pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends."

Mora knew his mission was "absurd" -- until his commitment to seeing it through, come what may, killed him. Meanwhile, the likes of Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack are back in air-conditioned Washington think tank offices, arguing that we must nonetheless pursue it indefinitely, even if it will cost the lives of an untold number of Moras to come.

Still, failure in Iraq must be averted at all costs. A lot of very precious reputations are at stake.

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