The US Occupation of Iraq: Casualties Not Counted

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http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=11158

<snip>Two weeks before his death, he told a friend in Namibia, "There was a lot of death and murder going on {in Iraq} that was just not right, and the only thing they could do was to follow orders." He also told her, "I should go back."

For nine years, Eysselinck had served as a captain in the US Army and was very proud to be a member of the Armed Forces. He had been commissioned as a Lieutenant of Infantry from the ROTC at the University of Florida on completion of his BA. He was a graduate of the Infantry Officer Basic course, Airborne School, and was Ranger qualified. He had served as a Platoon Leader, Company Executive Officer and Battalion Adjutant in a Light Infantry Division based in Hawaii. After four years he was promoted as Captain. Before leaving he gave up Active Duty. In 1994 he returned to serve with Special Operations Command Europe and was deployed to Bosnia, West Africa, and finally Namibia in 1998. Throughout his military career, Captain Eysselinck received excellent Officer Evaluation Reports. snip

He left the army in 2000 because his wife, Birgitt, had made that a condition of their marriage. But when he returned home from his time in Iraq, Tim was a changed man.

His mother, Janet Burroway, is a writer and academic who lives in Florida. In an earlier interview with journalist Rick Kelly, she described her son on his return from Iraq thus: "What he experienced had a shattering effect on him. There was absolutely no hint of the depression to come. But the anger was palpable. It was shattering to him, to come to feel that the war was wrong. He spoke of corruption, lies, greed and a brutish stupidity. At the time, I was so happy to hear that he had seen something of what I felt about the war that I didn't stop to think about how deeply wounding that would be to him. He said that he was disgusted with the Bush regime, and that Bremer had screwed it all up with the Iraqis. He was always, almost glibly, willing to die for his country, and even saw himself as going heroically into battle. But that's not what happened to him. He said at one point to a friend in Namibia that he was ashamed to be an American. I'll say that any day of the week, but for Tim to say it represents such a huge turnaround."