Two Of Soldiers Who Penned Times Op-Ed Criticizing War Appear To Have Died
September 12, 2007 -- 8:06 AM EST // //
It appears that two of the soldiers who helped co-write a riveting New York Times Op-ed last month criticizing U.S. war strategy in Iraq have now died.
The two soldiers are Staff Sergeant Yance Gray and Sergeant Omar Mora. Those are the names of two of seven soldiers who co-wrote the Op-ed, which described the political debate in Washington as "surreal," opining that "to believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched."
Now a local Texas station is reporting that Mora was killed Monday in a vehicle rollover accident that killed seven troops.
Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports that Gray died in the same accident.
I've got a call into the Pentagon press office seeking confirmation that these two are the same soldiers that wrote the Op-ed. Over at Editor and Publisher, Greg Mitchell says that they are the same, as does a diarist over at Daily Kos.
Back when the soldiers' courageous Op-ed appeared, it received scant media attention -- far less, for instance, than an Op-ed by Michael O'Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack arguing that the surge is working.
In their Op-ed, the soldiers wrote that despite their grave misgivings about the war strategy's likelihood for success, "as committed soldiers, we will see this mission through." Now, even as the likes of O'Hanlon and Pollack continue to argue in Washington that the surge is working, and even as the "surreal" Washington political debate the soldiers described continues, the two men's commitment to the mission has cost them their lives.