This story is one that makes me sad and hopeful. Sad because the blustering war-mongers opened a Pandora's Box they should have known better than to even touch, and hopeful because in a story of utter hopelessness, average American Soldiers and Iraqis devastated by the effects of a completely needless war are reaching out to each other.

On a steamy June morning two years ago, a U.S. soldier's warning shot ricocheted off a sand berm and blew a hole in Raez Habib's life.

The stray bullet plowed through the meat of his left thigh and shattered his right femur, leaving him bleeding in the street, Habib recalled in a recent interview. A helicopter took him to a military hospital, where doctors amputated his right leg four inches below the hip.
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Letters that Raez Habib carries from service members familiar with his case shed light on his story. (None includes a unit designation, but the military's press office in Baghdad said the Army's 3rd Battalion, 67th Armor Regiment, 4th Infantry Division, based at Fort Hood, Tex., was responsible for Diyala province, where Balad is located, during the summer of 2003.) Habib spent almost a week in the Army's 21st Combat Support Hospital in Balad, according to a note signed by Maj. Beverly Beavers, the hospital's operations chief.

He was eventually transferred to an Iraqi hospital in town, Capt. Dillard W. Young wrote on July 13, 2003, adding that Habib needed "help with his medical payments."

Two other notes discuss the difficulty his family had in getting money from the military. An undated note signed by Lt. John M. Noga and addressed to "Claims office personnel" says, "I can't get a clear answer as to why this claim was kicked back."

"We want to know the reason for not paying this claim," Staff Sgt. Joseph Messenger wrote on Feb. 21, 2004, about eight months after Habib was shot.

Last March, the military paid Habib $1,000 in restitution, his brother said, but that money has been spent.

Habib and many, many other Iraqi's have lost everything because of Preznit Completely Cowardly's lies. How we might be judged eventually,I hope, is not by the actions of the Total Chickenhawk Cowards and 69th Typewriter Tigers Brigade, but by the Major Beavers, Captain Youngs, Lieutenant Noga's and Staff Sergeant Messenger's. They are the face of America I know. They are who I hope we are remembered as being.