Soldier on his seventh tour dies in Afghanistan.
Filed Under: Afghanistan
By on May 1st, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Soldier on his seventh tour dies in Afghanistan.
Sgt. 1st Class David L. McDowell, 30, of Ramona, California died Tuesday in Afghanistan of “wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked using small arms fires.” The San Diego Tribune reports, “He had been deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq seven times and was a recipient of two Bronze stars and a Purple Heart.”
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Still serving while a decorated, injured hero in a quagmire designed by his commander in chief.
Bush, you give new meaning to the term “feckless”.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:04 pmSEVEN times? That would make him a Marine wouldn’t it?
May 1st, 2008 at 1:07 pmHow very sad.
Thank you to the Sergeant’s family for his honorable service.
NeoCons, who are you going to use when you run out of recycled soldiers? We know you’re all too chickenshit to serve, and our young are aware of how you intend to use them.
Is that why Blackwater is being primed for mercenary action?
May 1st, 2008 at 1:08 pmBush’s do over plays russian roulette with our son and daughters lives .
May 1st, 2008 at 1:09 pmMy sister did one tour in Iraq and got the hell out of the army after 20 years because we all knew you could just put the gun to your head and spin.
Lucky 7, eh? He probably thought the Russian roulette scene in The Deerhunter was daring and cool. Sadly he DID volunteer for this.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:10 pmSgt. McDowell deserves the thanks of all Americans. The sad fact is that his sacrifice is the result of a profound failure of civilian leadership.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:11 pmThis is pretty insane, after a few tours it seems like it’s the governments job to say “wow, two tours and you’re still alive, congratulations, and thank you, here’s a medal”, but the message sent to someone on their seventh tour is “we’re just gonna keep sending you until you die.” i have no idea whether this guy chose to re-up or not, he may have, but man, it seems crazy that the gov’t even lets someone go on 7 tours. It’s just really sad, it’s like he died the day he signed up, and we’re not going to have anything to show for his death and the deaths of all the others but a huge deficit and a nearly destroyed country (ours).
May 1st, 2008 at 1:12 pmIf we agree that Afganistan should have been the appropriate front of the war on terror (instead of the distraction that Iraq has been), would you agree that once we de-emphasize Iraq (troop withdrawl) should we focus more troops in Afganistan?
I understand those who would respond that our troop strength has been reduced by Bush policy. Granted. But, if we seriously believe that Afganistan is a legitimate front on the war on terror, the troop strength argument doesn’t absolve us of the challenges we face in Afganistan.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:12 pm#7
May 1st, 2008 at 1:14 pmHow do you know he wasnt stopped -lossed.
Very insensitive !!!!!
My bad I meant #5.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:15 pmbackup Says:
I understand those who would respond that our troop strength has been reduced by Bush policy. Granted.
Did it hurt when that house fell on you?
May 1st, 2008 at 1:16 pmJacqueline Says:
How do you know he wasnt stopped -lossed.
Very insensitive !!!!!
- - Not seven times, he wasn’t. Not possible.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:17 pmShoeless, you’re cracking me up today!!
May 1st, 2008 at 1:20 pmWhere are the reich-wingers with their purple heart band aids?
May 1st, 2008 at 1:21 pmJesus Christ - that’s fecking heartbreaking…:o(
Well, I guess HE won’t need the G.I. Bill…
May 1st, 2008 at 1:23 pmbackup,
what’s your point? Iraq is a mistake. this mand is dead becuase there aren’t enough soldiers to go around. you and yours killed him. jerkwad.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:26 pmFor you Sgt. McDowell
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ6LcdFPOy0
May 1st, 2008 at 1:27 pmRIP Sgt. McDowell. Ramona (Pop. ~30,000) is a very small town - village actually - in northeast San Diego county. Ramona has more horses per capita than all other places in the country - including Kentucky. Very open, very pretty. I can tell you that the impact of this brave soldiers death will be felt for a long, long time.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:35 pmre “tours”:
My father was a volunteer (his brother too) and served in five “tours” over 7 years. Of course that was WWII and he started with the Defence of Britain, moved onto North Africa, then to Italy. then to France and finally Germany. Note the progression.
Here we have a Sergeant who gets killed in the same place he started, over the same period of time. And Bush STILL claims progress!
May 1st, 2008 at 1:36 pmBadmoodman Says:
Lucky 7, eh? He probably thought the Russian roulette scene in The Deerhunter was daring and cool. Sadly he DID volunteer for this.
Sadly, I have my doubts about whether this comment should stand.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:44 pmMcWars Says:
Badmoodman Says:
Lucky 7, eh? He probably thought the Russian roulette scene in The Deerhunter was daring and cool. Sadly he DID volunteer for this.
Sadly, I have my doubts about whether this comment should stand.
Patriotism aside, if any soldier knew that they would be rotated through 7 tours, they would certainly think twice - or three times - about ‘volunteering’.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:48 pmOur military’s current policy: “We keep you in until you die.”
May 1st, 2008 at 1:59 pmmisshusseinmolly Says:
Our military’s current policy: “We keep you in until you die.”
May 1st, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Well with the cost of health care and body armor, can you blame them? A dead GI is a much better long-term return-on-investoment.
May 1st, 2008 at 2:05 pmi’m sorry to say this - i mean no disrespect - but, wouldn’t it be somewhat
of a deathwish after, say, the 3rd or 4th sign up?
maybe delusions of grandeur… infallibility?
but i think those guys need a mental evaluation… non-military, of course…
what a fookin’ mess…
May 1st, 2008 at 2:08 pmre: 24
It could be that, or a hightened sense of responsibility for his comarades. Regardless, he should have been stopped from re-upping for that mission.
May 1st, 2008 at 2:11 pmreturn-on-investoment.
May 1st, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Ugh. What a waste of perfectly good snark. :(
May 1st, 2008 at 2:14 pmDeployments a re just Russian Roullette. Eventaully, your luck runs out.
May 1st, 2008 at 2:19 pm(4,063) Lost citizen’s of the USA for bush war folly…..Estimated 1 million innocent men, women and children in Iraq for a bush vendetta and his claim of oil under their sand…..Total injured and maimed unknown….On this May day I grieve for all the lost live’s here and over there…Now will the U.S and world hold those responsible accountable for their war crime’s…..Blessings to all the famalies of the fallen….Blessings to all of us for the shame we will carry for generation’s because of this evil regime in our country..
May 1st, 2008 at 2:21 pm7 tours. Bush could never find the courage or determination to ask for a draft but this soldier was asked to go back into the fray 7 times.
My thanks goes to this soldier and all he followed. My contempt for Bush and this administration grows.
May 1st, 2008 at 2:25 pmYet another soldier dies, and another notch goes on Bush’s Hellbent Belt. The issue of the Seargeant First Class’s enlistment/reenlistment is irrelevant. He was obviously a career soldier, per his rank. That doesn’t excuse the SEVEN deployments into harms way.
May 1st, 2008 at 2:32 pm#21: Patriotism aside, if any soldier knew that they would be rotated through 7 tours, they would certainly think twice - or three times - about ‘volunteering’.
- - I think you’re naive about the gung-ho attitude of some military men. Some just can’t get enough, for better or worse.
May 1st, 2008 at 2:40 pmSomeone want to explain to me how a 30-year-old could be on his seventh tour? What happened to equivalent home time between deployments?
May 1st, 2008 at 2:51 pmSgt. McDowell’s tragic story is exactly what McCain feels the military should be. Keep fighting until you’re killed, no GI Bill needed for this poor soul. Just another flag draped coffin snuck back into the USA, hidden from the cameras and the press. If McCain had his way, with his new bill, EVERY soldier would be put in the position of staying in the military until he or she meets the same fate. No incentive to leave the military, no other future to look forward to. After seven tours I doubt your former employer would still be holding your job for you. Your children grow taller and older never really getting the chance to know you. Your spouse going through the daily torment, the hope that you may finally come home some day in one piece with your faculties all in tact and the Government won’t stop/loss you right back to square one. I become more saddened daily at the utter heartlessness of this pathetic Administration and their selfish, money/oil grubbing war. Death can’t happen more painful or slowly for these god damned neocon chickenhawk criminals. I hope there is some lowlevel special cave in Hell waiting for these egocentric bottomfeeders where they are waterboarded daily for eternity by brown people whose excited laughter cuts right through their bitter black hearts.
May 1st, 2008 at 2:53 pmlm945 Says:
What happened to equivalent home time between deployments?
May 1st, 2008 at 2:51 pm
____
The Bush administration.
May 1st, 2008 at 2:58 pmNo doubt his flag drapped-coffin will come back in the middle of the night hidden in obscurity.
This flag which supposedly stands for justice ?? Americans should be ashamed of themselves…
Do you think Bush or Cheney will pay respects ???
May 1st, 2008 at 3:12 pmThis is sad beyond words. What have we done? What have we become?
May 1st, 2008 at 3:14 pm7 tours?
Good god.
My condolences to his family and friends.
May 1st, 2008 at 3:15 pmHere’s where I going with this.
I live under the assumption that the posts at TP happen in concert with some agenda.
Democrats and progressives, in attempt to avoid appearing too dovish in their disapproval of Iraq, have supported the effort in Afganistan.
Recently, more stories about bad things happening in Afganistan are being posted.
I’m asking this question: Now, that it appears troops will be coming home from Iraq, what is the plan for Afganistan? Will democrats support Afganistan, as they said they did in the past? Or, after we leave Iraq, will democrats concentrate on getting the troops back from Afganistan?
I don’t think there is a right or wrong answer. I’m just see a disconnect in the positions and wonder what the current position of progressives is.
If there’s bad news in Afganistan, do we leave, or do we do what it takes to stabilize the situation?
May 1st, 2008 at 3:17 pmThe WarOnTerrrrr’s the Royal Scam. The invasion of Afghanistan shoulda been the Invasion of Saudi. It’s - all of it - neocon BULLSHIT.
May 1st, 2008 at 3:55 pmYou’re projecting your own stupidity on TP. This thread is not about the war it’s about what we’ve asked of our troops and this man in particular. Why don’t you try just this once to show some respect and STFU.
May 1st, 2008 at 4:22 pmShayne. Okay, let’s say I’m wrong about my agenda assumption.
Is it fair for me to ask what the current progressive position is on Afganistan?
May 1st, 2008 at 4:39 pmShayne.
I’ve been told (repeatedly) that the blood of the troops and innocent Iraqis are on my hands, because I have supported Bush’s Iraq policy. Fair enough.
Here’s Obama on Afganistan:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/ 2007/ 08/ 01/ obama-would-take-war-on-terror-into-pakistan/
If Obama and progressives support the effort in Afganistan, couldn’t the same logic be applied to them.
This soldier, for example, he would not have died, if we weren’t in Afganistan. More soldiers will die if we stay.
And if progressives support Obama and our continued efforts in Afganistan, won’t they conincidentally be responsible for the future deaths of troops and possible innocent civilian causualties there?
It’s a simple and fair question. Should we stay in Afganistan and risk more lives of troops, like Sgt. McDowell, or should we leave today and admit that the policy was probably a mistake?
May 1st, 2008 at 4:57 pmcrickets chirping…
May 1st, 2008 at 5:19 pmbackup Says:
It’s a simple and fair question. Should we stay in Afganistan and risk more lives of troops, like Sgt. McDowell, or should we leave today and admit that the policy was probably a mistake?
May 1st, 2008 at 4:57 pm
_____
I realize that as a conservative you have a very simple mind that is unable to handle anything more complicated than simple black/white yes/no logic, so I’ll try to break this down for you in terms you can understand.
Afghanistan is not Iraq.
Afghanistan is a highly underdeveloped Central Asian country that we thoroughly abandoned after they helped us defeat the Soviet Union, plunging them into near-constant warfare.
Iraq is a country we have shat on steadily since the 1950s, even when we were arming them with chemical weapons.
Afghanistan was the base of operations of al-Qa’ida, which has since shifted to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.
Iraq had no connection with al-Qa’ida and posed no threat to the United States.
The invasion of Afghanistan was justified and sanctioned under international law, and even if some of our tactics have been questionable it is still a just invasion.
The invasion of Iraq was illegal, unjustified, and an unnecessary distraction from the effort to prosecute al-Qa’ida.
Afghanistan has a functioning central government that is stymied by the extreme poverty and underdevelopment of the country. It is in our best interests to provide Afghanistan with stability and development assistance in order to prevent them from becoming a base for al-Qa’ida.
Iraq is mired in a five-front civil war that is being refereed by our troops. The one common denominator among all the warring factions is that they want us out, as we are the primary obstacle to stability in Iraq.
See the difference? They’re subtle distinctions, I know. But they’re the reasons why we can maintain two different opinions about two different wars.
May 1st, 2008 at 5:30 pmtoasterhead.
I could try to make arguments about why I also think Iraq is not a black and white scenerio and why there are good reasons to pursue stabilization there.
But, it would probably just flustrate the both of us.
What I’m more interesting in, is commending you for a very straight forward, thoughtful answer.
I understand it and agree with your reasoning on Afganistan.
Do you feel that most other posters here feel that we should stay in Afganistan and that the causalties are different (or more an acceptable loss) because the cause is more legitimate?
May 1st, 2008 at 6:17 pmDidn’t Bush recently say he wished he could serve in Afghanistan and how it must be “exciting”
May 1st, 2008 at 8:38 pmI think he even used the word “romantic”.
What a complete ass!
How did such an idiot become President?
How do we prevent it from happening again?
The first sentence of the article tells you that.
You don’t do 7 tours in 7 years without that being all you want to do.
“Down to the last bone in his body, the guy believed in what he did, friend Jesse Carlson told the newspaper.”
Indeed. If you can’t figure that out, you really have *no* idea.
May 1st, 2008 at 8:47 pmKilo.
The guy is a hero. I’m proud of him. Proud for him.
I understand the left’s offense of the causalties in Iraq; they oppose that.
But, don’t progressives support Afghanistan? Obama does. We all regret every loss of life. But what’s the issue here.
If their going to support the effort, there’s going to be causualties.
My take is this: Regardless of how we got into Iraq or Afghanistan, let’s honor Sgt. McDowell by making sure his sacrifice has some meaning other than dying for a failed effort.
May 1st, 2008 at 9:09 pmPlural in number, single in name.
Only soldier I’ve ever seen mentioned here is Pat Tillman.
And that’s most often in the context of conspiracy theories about how he was probably murdered on the orders of George Bush for no apparent reason.
You’ll wanna avoid assigning any assumption of reasoned or sensible positions among the crowd here.
May 1st, 2008 at 10:18 pmBackup said: “flustrate”
A new word! I like it, too, being a combination of fluster and frustrate.
As a Liberal, let me make it clear the wise decision was to never invade either country to begin with, which always has been my position (no wishy-washy liberal here). After reading the Art of War – the Cliff Notes of strategy – one sees right away that the Bush Admin made every mistake possible. So to attack and invade either nation was obviously idiotic.
And I said that in 2002 and 2003, I screamed it at the top of my lungs from the rooftops. Of course everyone thought I was insane, but that’s because they bought all the myriad of ever-shifting lies the Bush Admin promulgated as justification for the quagmire they intentionally created (how else can one explain the horrific mistakes they made but that they meant to do it this way?).
That said, let me be clear, I do NOT hate ‘the troops’. I do have a lot of empathy for all of them, and this news of Sgt.McDowell saddens me greatly, as does the death of everyone, US soldiers and Afghan and Iraqi alike. The tragic loss for his family is grievous.
I am mildly surprised that he was on a seventh tour. I would reasonably assume that, as mentioned above, once three our four tours you had respectfully earned the right to never go back to the front. And if a soldier wanted to keep going back until the odds of death became certain, then I would have thought the greatest nation on the planet would have more compassion and gently persuade that soldier to stay home. Allowing a soldier to return to combat until the odds of death are certain is callous, at the least, and vicious if intentional.
Does the US have a policy of repeatedly sending soldiers until they are dead?
BTW, my mom has no empathy for any troop. In her opinion, the moment they sign on, they are already dead, and the family would do well to behave that way. By making the agreement to go kill people that are defending their own homes against a foreign invader, the soldier has forfeited any compassion.
I have too much Buddhism in my head for that, I strive to have compassion for all living creatures, from the driver that cuts me off on the highway, to the US soldier that machine guns an innocent Iraqi family in their car as they approach a checkpoint.
May 2nd, 2008 at 11:27 amComrade.
you got me with the ‘flustrate’, I could use a good spellchecker.
I get your point about the government compassionately suggesting the soldier quit at some point.
I never thought liberals (or anyone opposed to the war) hated the troops.
I respect you opinion on the matter.
I am curious, though, where do you stand on Afghanistan (Pakistan)? Is it worth it? Or should we bring the troops home?
May 2nd, 2008 at 3:32 pmIt will never be clear to me how or why it is that people always admonish others to “honor” the sacrifices, bravery and dedication of the soldiers who die on foreign soil fighting battles thought up by people who have nothing invested and everything to gain by using them for cannon fodder.
In every case since 1960, the wars we decided to fight – conveniently undeclared, to get around legislative approval, and therefore illegal – it is said these soldiers are fighting for my freedom, sacrificing for my protection. In no case has that been true. The majority of people swallow whole what is told them, without evaluating it themselves. I don’t know whether our schools failed our people so much they do not think critically, or whether they have also the same kind of dishonesty about their own intensions that the Big Guys in DC have.
The courage a soldier must exercise in those horrific places and situations is a wonder; and a testimony to the amazing entity we call a human being. But I do not honor the fighting, the killing, the following the “leader” (who does not lead, but demands, “Let’s you and him fight!”)
No one has sacrificed for my freedom. I have less freedom – as do we all – since the most recent war began. I have never been at risk of being taken over by Communists or Muslims or Socialists. But as surely as I am breathing, I am at clear risk of being taken over (and it has as much as happened, already) by “Democracy,” which has been usurped by Greed, passing itself off as Capitalism.
The one time I (and my peers) were in danger from others was September 11, 2001 and there was no protection or fighting for our safety or preservation of the nation, then.
May 2nd, 2008 at 4:35 pmYou’ll wanna avoid assigning any assumption of reasoned or sensible positions among the crowd here.
Coming from the King of the Twits, an honor, indeed!
backup: I am curious, though, where do you stand on Afghanistan (Pakistan)? Is it worth it? Or should we bring the troops home?
Why? Did we invade that country under false pretenses? I find it hard to believe that you’re so unaware of the historical context, and the differences between Iraq and Afghanistan.
May 2nd, 2008 at 6:40 pmWTF do you think you’re in Afghanistan for you tool ?
So soldiers don’t defend the US and the one time they could have (under some martial law arrangement apparently) they didn’t and anything that happens afterwards is considered unconnected. Terrific.
WTF changed in 1960 would be the first question raised, to make that Panama incursion the last justifiable military intervention.
Second would be if 9/11 doesn’t justify the overthrow of the Taliban, why stop at 1960. Sure, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, but can’t all ensuing attacks on the Japanese be considered unprovoked and illegal acts unrelated to protecting US citizens ?
May 2nd, 2008 at 8:58 pmI mean, either both are just baffling coincidences or neither are.
Outstanding.
May 2nd, 2008 at 9:21 pm