Bryan Scripsick died in a suicide bombing in Anbar province on September 6, 2007. He was just three weeks shy of returning home. Since then, his father John Scripsick has become a leading opponent of the Iraq war.
His talk:
North of Baghdad about twenty miles. Albu Hyatt is the name of the town. There my son died.
It was at a checkpoint. There was two Iraqi soldiers at the checkpoint, and he was in a Humvee about a half a block from the checkpoint. And the second vehicle in line at the checkpoint pulled out of line, drove past the Iraqi soldiers, and apparently they shot, but missed, and then went straight at—there was a group of Marines working behind my son, and I guess that’s where he was headed. So my son and three others died in stopping the suicide bomber.
He got there in March, and this was September. So he was right at the end of the tour. He joined military right out of high school in 2004.
I was totally against it.
I had a bad feeling about George Bush and this war. I watched the interview with him and Pope John Paul, that he pleaded with him not to go to Iraq. And I remember Hans Blix, the UN inspector, said he was not finding anything in Iraq, and he pleaded with—he just needed some more time to keep looking, but he was not finding any weapons of mass destruction. But Bush ordered him and all the unit inspectors out and said that he was going to war. And I also had followed the 9/11 attack. Most of those were from Saudi Arabia and I think a couple from Yemen, not a one from Iraq. Nobody from Iraq has ever hurt—or came over to America and hurt us, so I could not see why we were going into Iraq.
When he joined, it was supposedly “mission accomplished.” And I thought, well, he might get in between two wars. The recruiter became pretty much his best friend. He was on the phone to him just about every night. And I had—was trying to talk him out of it, and he said, “Dad,” he says, “I’m a leader.” He says, “A lot of people are followers, but I’m a leader.” And I said that “They won’t let you lead.” And he says, “Yeah, they will. You know, if you have common sense and do things right, they will let you lead.” So I could not—I couldn’t outtalk the recruiter on him joining. So I was hoping he would be in between two wars with “mission accomplished,” but it didn’t turn out to be that way.
My son studied at Pauls Valley High School. The recruiter had a desk in the school in the hallway. My son came to know him from there. They were friends until my son Bryan got out of boot camp, and then he wouldn’t even return Bryan’s phone calls.
Bryan was proud of what he’d done. He was proud to join. He was proud to graduate from boot camp. And I remember on the way home, he was saying, as soon as he gets home, he’s going to call the recruiter. And I heard him call him a couple of times and leave a message, and a couple days later, I asked, “Did he ever call you back?” And he said, “No.” That’s when I think he really realized that he might have got took.
Bryan is the first one out of our family that has served. I missed Vietnam by just a little bit.
Most of my neighbors agree with me, speaking out against the war. They think this war is just for money. There’s a few people at the top making a lot of money, and then the poor people of Iraq are the ones suffering, and the families here that has lost somebody are the ones suffering.
– from democracynow.org