Maria
Made Me Cry
By Joel S. Hirschhorn
18 July, 2007
Countercurrents.org
I
unexpectedly found myself crying over the Iraq war as I read the obituary
of Capt. Maria Ines Ortiz, a highly praised Army nurse. What I read
broke my heart. The story of this remarkable woman and her tragic, pointless
killing in Iraq had so much more power than the endless statistics that
have numbed our emotions and fed our anger about Bush’s Iraq War.
Maria was just 40 years old.
She volunteered for duty in Iraq, eager to do her part. She wanted to
take care of soldiers. She was the first Army nurse killed in combat
since the Vietnam War.
Everyone who ever worked
with Maria adored and respected her. She was one of those truly exceptional
people who transcended her professional status with loving care for
those she nursed and worked with.
Maria was killed on July
10 in the Green Zone in Baghdad. She was caught outside by a barrage
of mortar shells and killed by shrapnel.
Before going to Iraq last
fall she was the chief nurse at the Kirk U.S. Army Health Clinic in
Aberdeen, Maryland. Many people there broke down in tears when the clinic
commander called everyone together to tell them Maria was another casualty
of the Iraq War. Renee Smith who had worked with Maria described her
as the “jewel of the clinic.” “Her work wasn’t
finished until everybody was cared for,” said Smith.
Maria had also served at
Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Medical Command officials are considering
naming a building or clinic in her name to honor her memory.
Wendy Schuler, another co-worker
at Aberdeen, had sent Maria an email, asking if she needed anything.
All Maria wanted was Christmas decorations so she could brighten up
the halls at the hospital where she worked. Her colleagues there held
a memorial service for her. They talked about how Maria had touched
their lives.
Maria started her Army career
as an enlisted solder with the Reserve in Puerto Rico in 1991. She became
active duty in 1993 and was commissioned an officer in 1999, the year
she received her nursing masters degree from the University of Puerto
Rico. Dead in 2007.
Upon returning from Iraq,
Maria was to marry Juan Casiano, an Army veteran who had guided her
career. He said “She touched everyone's lives and everything about
her was positive. She always carried a smile. I saw in her what everyone
else sees, a beautiful person who brings joy to everyone she touches.
There wasn’t anything negative about that woman.”
Maria is also survived by
her parents and four sisters. Her father had also served in the Army
and said, “She always said to me ‘daddy, I am going to serve
30 years in the army.’” Maria only made it halfway.
Maria will be buried at Arlington
National Cemetery.
Maria was just 40 years old
with so much more living, loving and service ahead of her. Bush is guilty
of her criminally negligent homicide.
I don’t know what Maria
thought of the Iraq War. But her death has done more than anything else
to make me despise what our disgraceful, delusional and dumb President
George W. Bush has done. It will take a long, long time for our nation
to heal from the wounds that Bush has viciously and arrogantly inflicted
on us.
Maria should not have died
from shrapnel in Iraq. And neither should have thousands and thousands
of other Americans died and become terribly wounded in Iraq. For what?
To keep all the lies of Bush alive until, eventually and inevitably,
we leave Iraq, defeated and with even more dead and wounded soldiers?
By then Bush will be back
in Texas, disgraced, delusional and dumb as ever. And many, many people
will still shed tears when they remember Maria and ask themselves: Why?
And why, I ask, is there
any hesitation by any sane member of Congress about impeaching Bush?
[Joel S. Hirschhorn is a founder of Friends of the Article V Convention
at www.foavc.org
and author of Delusional Democracy, www.delusionaldemocracy.com.]
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