In a front-page story this summer, The Washington Post put a human face on the suffering caused by the Iraq war: “On the military planes that crossed the ocean at night, the wounded lay in stretchers stacked three high. Pfc. Joshua Calloway was at the top of one stack, handcuffed to his stretcher.”

Calloway had been in the ninth month of a year's tour with the 101st Airborne Division.

Fifty soldiers in his brigade had died; two had committed suicide.

Then one afternoon, he watched his sergeant, who had been like a big brother to him, step on a bomb in the road and be blown to bits. When Calloway was ordered to help collect the body parts, he cracked.

A week later, he was sent home, one of up to 40 soldiers evacuated from Iraq every month because of mental problems.

American soldiers returning from Iraq with combat-stress disorder outnumber amputees 43 to one.

Many of these soldiers will be dealing with their post-traumatic stress disorders for years.

More than 3,700 American military personnel have died in the war.

By conservative estimates, the Iraqi civilian death toll is approaching 100,000.

Two million Iraqi citizens have fled their country. Another 2 million are living in refugee camps inside Iraq in appalling conditions.

If you think that continued U.S. combat operations are the wrong course and that the war's mounting cost in human life and resources cannot be justified, write to Congress.

Ask your senator and representatives to appropriate funds only for the safe and orderly withdrawal of United States forces and bases from Iraq and not for further combat operations.

Tom Lickona

Cortland