HELIOLITH

On his blog today, Kevin Sites posts an open letter to the Marine Unit he reported on when one Marine took an unarmed, wounded Iraqi’s life. It’s entitled “To the Devil Dogs of the 3.1″ He painstakingly articulates his efforts to maintain the dead-center unbiased voice of journalism. He laments “…I find myself a lightning rod for controversy in reporting what I saw occur in front of me, camera rolling.” , He speaks about his feeling after the shot was fired, “I am still rolling. I feel the deep pit of my stomach.” After a few moments of assessing the other wounded in the room, the first Marine approaches Kevin and says, “I didn’t know sir-I didn’t know.”

As much as I value all human life equally, I identify somehow with the Marine. I want him to be innocent. Somewhere in my psyche there is a hint of what so many U.S. citizens must believe: that we are the good guys. It wasn’t long after the loss of Santa that I realized this wasn’t true. Yet the war told from the Marine point of view is riveting.; yesterday I read an account of the street to street combat in Fallujah in the New York Times and I felt they were my brothers; in fact they are. It is deeply heartbreaking that our young soldiers are going up against others who equally believe in the justice of their cause, not to mention the thousands of civilians dead, wounded, and homeless. Who can really say our cause is more just than theirs? Who understands either cause truly?

One of the lieutenants Kevin speaks with explained to him early on that this is a “gentleman’s war…” if only that were ever true. I can’t help but wonder how this will all come around to “rain fire on our heads” again in the future, as Joseph Arthur puts it. (thanks to Robert S. for that last link)

This entry is a follow-up on two previous posts: (link), (link)

Update 11/22: NYTimes today covers Sites’ letter in detail. BoingBoing writer Xeni Jardin suggests it might the first time the paper has based an entire story around a blog entry.