The Exquisite Corpse of Tomas Young

Tomas Young, Specialist (SPC/E-4) (November 30, 1979 – November 10, 2014) was an Army veteran of the Iraq War. At 22, four days after the 9/11 attacks, Young joined the Army thinking he would be sent to Afghanistan to bring Al-Qaida to justice. He was instead sent to Iraq, and within five days of deployment Young was shot in the spine and paralyzed from the chest down. Gravely wounded, Young returned to the US and became one of the first veterans to speak out publicly against the war and a leading voice in the American anti-war movement. Despite constant pain from his injuries he travelled extensively until his death, speaking out about the betrayal of US veterans and the American people by Bush administration, which lied about the reasons for the invasion of Iraq. Young was the embodiment of the way the direct experience of war can transform consciousness and personal politics. He went from entering the Army as young man uncritically believing the President’s rationale for the Iraq invasion to understanding how he and other young soldiers were manipulated, lied to, and used as fodder for the economic and political ambitions of the US corporate state. The letter he wrote shortly before his death, “My Last Words to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney," articulates this beautifully. I think it is one the great pieces of anti-war literature and should be read by all young people thinking of joining the military.—Jeffrey Skoller