U.S. Army Sgt Omar Mora, of Texas City and the 82nd Airborne, gained fame a few weeks ago when he was one of seven front-line soldiers to sign onto an op-ed piece in The New York Times that injected some reality into the rosy scenarios the Bush Administration was pushing.
Now he’s dead.
Mora, 28, was killed Monday in western Baghdad, along with Sgt. Yance Gray, another of the op-ed authors.
The Houston Chronicle story somehow doesn’t mention the op-ed, but the Galveston County Daily News does and quotes Mora’s mother saying her son was becoming increasingly depressed by events in Iraq.
“To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched,” the op-ed said.
The seven deaths in the vehicle accident that took Mora’s life brought the official number of U.S. armed forces killed in Iraq to 3,774. – Richard Connelly
This article appears in Sep 6-12, 2007.
