Soldier's Death Symbolizes Insanity of Iraq War

Technorati Tags: Iraq, Brian Freeman, U.S. Army, John Kerry, Christopher Dodd, nonbinding+resolution,

A captain in the U.S. Army named Brian Freeman died about 10 days ago in an ambush by Iraqi fighters disguised as American troops. He leaves a wife and two children under the age of three.

Freeman got a write-up in the Washington Post today because of a conversation he had about a month ago, in Iraq, with senators John Kerry and Christopher Dodd, about the way the war was being conducted:

Just before Christmas, an Army captain named Brian Freeman cornered Sens. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) at a Baghdad helicopter landing zone. The war was going badly, he told them. Troops were stretched so thin they were doing tasks they never dreamed of, let alone trained for.

Freeman, 31, took a short holiday leave to see his 14-month-old daughter and 2-year-old son, returned to his base in Karbala, Iraq, and less than two weeks ago died in a hail of bullets and grenades. Insurgents, dressed in U.S. military uniforms, speaking English and driving black American SUVs, got through a checkpoint and attacked, kidnapped four soldiers and later shot them. Freeman died in the assault, the fifth casualty of the brazen attack.

The death of the West Point graduate -- a star athlete from Temecula, Calif., who ran bobsleds and skeletons with Winter Olympians -- has radicalized Dodd, energized Kerry and girded the ever-more confrontational stance of Democrats in the Senate. Freeman's death has reverberated on the Senate floor, in committee deliberations and on television talk shows.

Read the whole thing. It's incredibly moving.