HOME: APRIL 27, 2007: NEWS

'Life Needs Trust'

Ted Westhusing's last note to his superior officers

Thanks for telling me it was a good day until I briefed you. [Redacted name] You are only interested in your career and provide no support to your staff – no msn [mission] support and you don't care. I cannot support a msn that leads to corruption, human right abuses and liars. I am sullied – no more. I didn't volunteer to support corrupt, money grubbing contractors, nor work for commanders only interested in themselves. I came to serve honorably and feel dishonored. I trust no Iraqi. I cannot live this way. All my love to my family, my wife and my precious children. I love you and trust you only. Death before being dishonored any more. Trust is essential – I don't know who [to] trust anymore. Why serve when you cannot accomplish the mission, when you no longer believe in the cause, when your every effort and breath to succeed meets with lies, lack of support, and selfishness? No more. Reevaluate yourselves, cdrs. [commanders] You are not what you think you are and I know it.

COL Ted Westhusing

Life needs trust. Trust is no more for me here in Iraq.

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COMMENTS

Colonel Westhusing A Great Leader Lost May 08, 2007 - 08:27 pm

A Man Of The Utmost Honor...................................

It's old hat by now, that the Iraq war is going dismally, that the Bush Administration is huffing fantasy gas, that the very idea of trying to create a new American-style democracy in the current-day Middle East is worthy of Neil Simon at his caustic funniest.

What's unexpected, though, is for a shadow of real honor to arise from such a dismal swamp.

I'm not talking about the sincere efforts put forth by our military personelle every day in Iraq, in the service of what they hope will be a chance for that country to climb out of its abyss. Rather, I'm talking about the sacrifice of one particular, outstanding example of the virtues we ask of our soldiers.

I'm talking about Colonel Ted Westhusing, whos own life ended in trailer 602A in Camp Dublin, in Bagdad, Iraq, on June 5th, 2005. He was 44 years of age, and was survived by a wife and three young children.

Why does a death merit such lauds? Because the readily evident integrity of the man himself was only too obviously what drove him to stand up. Ted Westhusing was a graduate of West Point, and subsequently an instructor there, and took seriously what the academy teaches its cadets: that a cadet and officer will not lie, cheat, steal, nor tolerate those who do. He believed that the Iraq war was for a just cause, and trusted his commanders (including, needless to say, the Commander In Chief) to have only the most honorable motives for the actions they took and commanded.

Such principled devotion to duty commands respect from anyone, of any persuasion. I happen to have believed from the start that this war was an ethical abortion to put Augusto Pinochet's pocket purges to shame; but I'm from military stock, and recognize a hero when I see one. Colonel Ted Westhusing was one such.

And just where is the heroism .

Lets start with a couple of observations. First, a soldier - any soldier of any rank - is beholden to his commanders, no matter what the issue at hand, and must follow their orders. No one understood this better than Ted Westhusing, who had inculcated cadets in these principles. If a soldier takes issue with his commanders, he has a very limitted pallet of options. He can express his reservations to the commanders in question, given that they give him permission to do so; or if that permission is explicit or implicit in the mandate that accompanies his defined. He did his best

A great leader lost...... Truth May 08, 2007 - 08:35 pm

If the issue is urgent enough, he can go over his commanders' heads to the next level of command, but he had better damn well be right when he does so; or he'll be guilty of operating outside of the chain of command - and there are precious few offenses that are worse than that, in the armed forces.

Finally, he can refuse to follow orders that he judges are illegal - but again, he had better be right in his judgement. One of the first things you give up, when you sign up, is the right to judge for yourself what's right or wrong. In a nutshell, that's why I never signed up. Westhusing did, and I can't fault him for it. The military won't work, if everyone in it is free to exercize their conscience.

It was his conscience that drove him. He could not countenance what he saw happening around him - the way that Iraqi commanders treated the war effort as just another occasion for graft and bribes and theft; and the way American contractors took it all in stride, and looked the other way as war materiel disappeared into thin air; ultimately, as we know, to re-appear in hands not at all friendly to the American effort.

It's not clear, but I would assume that Westhusing made efforts to inform his commanders of the situation, and met with a wall of intentional ignorance.
Given this, his options were starkly clear. He could rotate home (only a month away, and remain silent, as his oath of service demanded; but such a choice would in effect condone the corruption he was witness to. He could violate his oath and go outside of the chain of command, to aprise someone of the situation; but that would put him in the wrong nearly as much as those he sought to expose.

The only acceptable excuse, for a soldier not performing his defined duty, is his death.

Westhusing was the sort who took this sort of question seriously. Given who he was, I don't think he overtly used his death to try to subvert the corruption he saw around himself, but saw it as the only honorable way to refuse to participate in the corruption himself. He doubtless hoped that his action might have a beneficial effect; but remember, he addressed his communication to his commanding officers, leaving the outcome up to them. And he knew pretty well where they stood, not having his back..but at his back with a gun..........

Not A Hero Aces & 8's May 09, 2007 - 11:01 pm

This guy was not a hero. He could have easily blown the lid off all the corruption he supposedly witnessed, but he did not. All he had to do was leak it to the media and watch the feeding frenzy begin. If he committed suicide, he is actually a coward. And if he was murdered . . . well that still doesn't make him a hero.

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'Life Needs Trust'

Ted Westhusing's last note to his superior officers

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