Breath And Bleed- Red White And Blue

Col. Ted Westhusing was a proud old school warrior, a West Point grad and professor. He sincerely believed in what it meant to breath and bleed red white and blue. He was a man of honor, as proud and pure as they come. He couldn't wait to serve his country in Iraq after he received his marching orders. His soul was so pure that he couldn't relate to the new modern day battlefield of business and profit and loss power points. Westhusing didn't go down in a hail of gunfire and greed but rather from a bullet that appeared to be from his own hands. He received an anonymous letter from somebody who knew the intricacies of the USIS contractor way of doing things. It insinuated that he was just as corrupt as these so called for profit hired guns. That was the beginning of the end for Westhusing. Up until that point he was very enthusiastic and thought that he could really make a difference. He even had e-mails that went back and fourth to David Petaraus. He started to become a little sullen when the realities set in that no matter how hard he tried the Iraqi people were never going to get up to speed. Not only that they were corrupt on every level. It apparently became too much to bear when he realized that he was fighting a losing war. Not only were the for profit hired guns corrupt but so were the Iraqis that he was trying to train. If people that were supposed to be on his team weren't on the up and up then how was he supposed to really make a difference in that war torn dilapidated country known as Iraq? It may have been suicide because their was a suicide note that allegedly matched his hand writing but maybe not. There was and still is speculation about an Arkanside for that poor soul. T. Christian Miller wrote a great book Blood Money.  This was Iraqs state of affairs in 2007, a few years before the war  supposedly ended and a little while before Condy Rice came in with her battlefield plan of a counter insurgency strategy of clear- build- hold. Basically it means that if Iraqs evil vibes can take down somebody as proud and pure as Westhusing then what does that say about the average soldier? Maybe it didn't take down the average soldiers because they didn't care as much as Westhusing. He took everything personally, it wasn't just a job it was a way of life for this man, the warrior ethos that dates back long before the Gladiators. Iraq became much worse after the American invasion. No electricity, food shortages, insurgencies, a lot more violence, no democracy, people stated that they were  much better off with Sadam. This war was never about restoring some semblance of a democracy, that would be as naïve as stating that the civil war was about slavery. Its the chaos and destabilization business people made a fortune. Contracts went unfulfilled eerily reminisint of Hillary's plan of Haiti after the earthquake. Because It doesn't matter if the work is ever completed as long as you get paid in advance, that is the only thing that matters. (Pocket Change- In the final days of the American occupation, the United States blasted money across Iraq like a leaf blower. The coalition asked the federal bank for a 2.4 billion dollar delivery.(Just when you think you've seen it all read one e-mail. C-130 cargo planes shipped $2,401,600,000 in pallets of shrink wrapped $100 dollar bills called cash paks. The shipment weighed 28 tons and took up as much room as 74 washing washings. It was supposedly the largest one time cash transfer in the history of the Federal Reserve Bank- pg-192) Blood Money