Major Andrew Olmsted,, a.k.a. G’Kar (UPDATE)
Posted by Thomas Nephew on January 4th, 2008
I’m dead, but if you’re reading this, you’re not, so take a moment to enjoy that happy fact.
– from Andy Olmsted’s last message to Obsidian Wings as “G’Kar”, posted by hilzoy by prior arrangement. Olmsted died yesterday in Iraq. By way of explaining the spare commentary here, Olmsted asks in his message that “no one try to use my death to further their political purposes.” He also writes:
…while you’re free to think whatever you like about my life and death, if you think I wasted my life, I’ll tell you you’re wrong. We’re all going to die of something. I died doing a job I loved. When your time comes, I hope you are as fortunate as I was.
I’m upset — odd, really, since I didn’t know him. Of course, I intend to honor his wish at this site, though anyone should comment as they please. To learn more about him, have a look at his work at Obsidian Wings, and at his own andrewolmsted.com site. Major Olmsted also maintained the blog “From the Front Lines” for the Rocky Mountain News.
For a flavor of how he thought about things, here’s his own August 2002 “The Case Against Attacking Iraq” — with an update that he wasn’t convinced by it himself. Olmsted later explained/asked:
If Hussein were able to develop nuclear weapons and it turned out he were not a rational actor as we understand the term, the result would be the atomic destruction of at least one American or Israeli city. Are we prepared to take that risk? I’m not.
Sounds familiar; I confess I’m not familiar enough with his writing to know how or whether he ever modified that view in view of the nonexistent WMD and WMD programs, and in view of growing doubts about the probity and rationality of our own leadership.
I extend my sincere condolences to his family, his friends, his unit in Iraq, and his readers and online friends at Obsidian Wings and around the Internet (especially hilzoy, Gary Farber, and Jim Henley).
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UPDATE, 1/7: New York Times article by Brian Stelter; “In Memoriam” by Jim Henley; Remembering Andy Olmsted by hilzoy, who relays from his unit that “Major Olmsted died while attempting to get the enemy to surrender so we would not have to kill them.” Another man, Captain Thomas Casey, was killed trying to save Olmsted.
UPDATE, 1/8: How To Help (hilzoy, “Obsidian Wings”) gives the address for a fund for Capt. Casey’s children — Capt. Thomas Casey Children’s fund, P.O. Box 1306, Chester, CA 96020; hilzoy also gathers press and blog links to Olmsted’s message. Blog links are sorted by “more than just a link” and “just a link”.
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January 7th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
His post was extraordinary. Everyone is finding something in it. I wrote about his mention of the cost of war, which ties into what you chose from his writings I think.
January 7th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Yes, it ties in somewhat — mainly in that he was an honest, thoughtful person who was willing to confront all sides of an issue.
I think that (like me) he got quite worried about the WMD threat in the hands of someone like Saddam (as I understood Saddam at the time — he clearly was rational enough to forego WMD development after the Gulf War). Also like me (though I’m guessing here) he got to be skeptical about whether that should have been enough to go to war. However, that’s not clear to me — I think the part of his post you cite may have been intended as “should have had eyes wider open, America” without necessarily saying “shouldn’t have gone in.” I think he was wrestling with the issue a lot.
At any rate, unlike me, he seems to have believed in staying in Iraq regardless of that; here’s a statement at the Rocky Mountain News blog he ran, put up posthumously under the “About Andrew” photo by the RMN: “”The sooner the Iraqi government doesn’t need U.S. support to provide security for its people, the sooner we will probably be asked to leave.”
January 7th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
I think the part of his post you cite may have been intended as “should have had eyes wider open, America” without necessarily saying “shouldn’t have gone in.”
Agreed.
January 8th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
He was also wrestling with the getting out question, and one of the things he said in his first Iraq post at Obsidian Wings made me eternally grateful to him. It needed to be said right then (summer 2006) by someone in the military:
Staying simply to make the previous deaths mean something is a recipe for never leaving. We all create our own meaning for our lives, it is not something provided for us by others.
February 5th, 2008 at 5:14 am
It’s entirely clear to me that Andy concluded quite some time back that the decision to go to invade Iraq was a complete mistake. I believe, though I’ve not asked, and could be wrong, that Hilzoy would confirm this.
If you read very carefully, he said as much when he wrote: “Yet I was as guilty as anyone of minimizing those very real consequences in lieu of a cold discussion of theoretical merits of war and peace. Now I’m facing some very real consequences of that decision; who says life doesn’t have a sense of humor?”
But you’d have to know him pretty well to fully understand what lay behind that, and to have read more of his posts. So I’m saying it.
February 5th, 2008 at 5:25 am
Right, that points that way, but (not knowing him as well) I could also read it as ’stiff upper lip’ about a decision he still supported. I was mainly trying not to insist on one reading vs. another, given his wish and all. — Thanks for dropping by, Gary.