Message keeps being misread

Cpl. Jeffrey Starr put his feelings about the Iraq war down in writing. So how come nobody can get them quite right?

The 22-year-old Marine from Snohomish was killed by sniper fire last May in Ramadi, Iraq. His father later discovered Starr had written a letter as he started his third tour of duty, to be delivered to his girlfriend only if he died. "Obviously if you are reading this then I have died in Iraq," the letter says.

It's eerie to read how he knew he was going to die. And stirring to hear how he says his death would not be in vain.

The letter from the grave is so moving it has been quoted widely since the Seattle Post-Intelligencer first printed it in September.

If only this story ended there.

But each time someone cites the letter, they leave part of it out. And people go ballistic.

Here's the key passage:

"Obviously if you are reading this then I have died in Iraq. I kind of predicted this — that is why I'm writing this in November. A third time just seemed like I'm pushing my chances.

"I don't regret going, everybody dies but few get to do it for something as important as freedom. It may seem confusing why we are in Iraq, it's not to me. I'm here helping these people, so that they can live the way we live. Not have to worry about tyrants or vicious dictators. To do what they want with their lives.

"To me that is why I died. Others have died for my freedom, now this is my mark."

The controversy started when The New York Times included Starr in a story about soldiers killed after serving multiple tours. It said Starr strongly backed the war, then included this part of his quote:

" 'I kind of predicted this,' Starr wrote of his own death. 'A third time just seemed like I'm pushing my chances.' "

Nothing about dying for freedom, or defeating tyrants. The conservative press accused the paper of anti-war bias.

"There it is — dark, foreboding, pessimistic, without any suggestion that [Starr] believed he was in Iraq for a valid purpose," said The New York Post, adding the story was "sacrilege" and "disgraceful."

Then Wednesday, President Bush quoted Starr in his Iraq speech. Bush read most of the passage — only he skipped over the dark, foreboding part about how Starr was on his third tour and suspected he would die. There's no ellipsis in the White House transcript to mark the omission.

The liberal blog dailykos.com pounced. Writers there accused Bush of sanitizing a tragedy to paint a rosier-than-reality view of the war.

Starr's uncle, Tim Lickness, says Bush came much closer to the truth, but that anyone featuring his nephew "ought to just tell the whole story."

Which goes for the entire war. The press is obsessed with the war's dark side. Bush only sees the sunny side. People react by talking past each other.

Starr's last words are what they are: rousing and patriotic and also tragic. Yet some can't let them be. They must be spun.

Makes you wonder whether we can honestly confront what to do now in this war.

Danny Westneat's column appears Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com.

Information in this article, originally published December 2, was corrected December 3. The column incorrectly said excepts from a letter from Marine Cpl. Jeffrey Starr first appeared in the Everett Herald in September. In fact, the letter was first reported by The Seattle Post-Intelligencer several days earlier.