Too Hard to Deal With

Christmas marked the date that we surpassed the number of 9/11 deaths by the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq, see George's Gift to the Nation, from OneGoodMove.

Of course, that number does not begin to represent the true toll from this war (our toll that is -- not to mention the untold/unknown loss of innocent Iraqi lives). For example, not included in the count is the death of James Dean, a reservist who served in Iraq for 18 months, but could not bear to return. Instead he chose "Suicide by cop" and they obliged.

As reported by the Washington Post, Reservist Due for Iraq Is Killed in Standoff With Police:

Despondent about his orders, Dean barricaded himself inside his father's home with several weapons on Christmas, threatening to kill himself. After a 14-hour standoff with authorities, Dean was killed yesterday by a police officer after he aimed a gun at another officer, police said.

Wanda Matthews, who lives next door to Dean's father and said she thought of the younger man as a son, described him as a "very good boy."

"His dad told me that he didn't want to go to war," Matthews said. "He had already been out there and didn't want to go again."

I can only ask why when reading this. Why is killing the only answer?

The SF Gate article on the incident noted that "police were preparing to use tear gas to force Dean out of the home" when he was shot. As All Spin Zone said, in “He was a good country boy”:

What ever happened to shooting in the leg or other non-lethal force? Seems like that was the norm for most of my life. Now, it seems like every week now there’s another story of someone being killed by police officers.

I guess it was just too hard to deal with any other way (both for the police as well as Dean). The police had to know that he was a soldier who had served in Iraq. And this is the thanks he got for serving our country?

Who are we again?

Tags: News, Iraq, James Dean