Soldier wounded in Iraq feels cynical
One day a nurse came in to ask Rodgers if he wanted to meet President Bush, who was visiting the hospital. Rodgers declined.
“I don’t want anything to do with him,” he explains. “My belief is that his ego is getting people killed and mutilated for no reason — just his ego and his reputation. If we really wanted to, we could pull out of Iraq. Maybe not completely, but enough that we wouldn’t be losing people — at least not at this rate. So I think he himself is responsible for quite a few American deaths.”
Bill Swisher, a spokesman for Walter Reed, says it’s “fairly common” for patients to decline to see visitors. “We’ve had visitors from Sheryl Crow to Hulk Hogan,” he says, but he has no idea how many have refused to see Bush, who has visited the hospital eight times.
Rodgers says he also declined to meet Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice. This wounded soldier has lost faith in his leaders, and he no longer believes their repeated assurances of victory.
Soldier wounded in Iraq feels cynical