Some politicians will take advantage of tragedy to seek political advantage. Then there's Senator Mark Dayton of Minnesota, who may have set a new low when he used the death of a Minnesota soldier to launch a cheap shot against the Bush administration.

On March 26, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported on the death of Cpl. Travis Bruce of Rochester, an MP who was killed by shrapnel while he was standing guard on the roof of a police station in Baghdad. Bruce's aunt says he was proud to be a soldier and was considering becoming a military recruiter when his active duty ended. But here is what Senator Dayton had to say about his death:

Nearly three weeks ago, Cpl. Travis Bruce of Rochester was killed by a rocket-propelled grenade while standing watch on the roof of a Baghdad police station.

On Tuesday, Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., sent a letter to President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld questioning the circumstances that led to Bruce's death.

In the letter, Dayton said that the day before his death Bruce told his girlfriend in a telephone call that he had been unable to obtain enough sandbags to fortify his position adequately.

"He gave his life heroically and importantly, but it's immoral for our command not to provide our soldiers with absolutely everything they need to give them maximum protection: body armor, armored vehicles, sandbags. ... It's immoral if our soldiers are left in any way unequipped and unprotected," Dayton said in an interview.

First it was body armor, then armored vehicles. Now it's "immoral" that our soldiers don't have enough sandbags. Am I missing something, or is this ludicrous on its face? I can understand a soldier in Iraq being short of armor. But sand? Sand is something Iraq has in abundance; it's not exactly a commodity that the Army airlifts there from the Mojave desert.

Moreover, the Star Tribune story linked to above seems to cast considerable doubt on the "missing sand bag" theory:

Bruce was killed when the rocket-propelled grenade hit a sandbag, ricocheted and exploded into a water tower, showering him with shrapnel.

On Tuesday, the day before he died, he called his girlfriend and said that he was stationed on the rooftop and increasing the height of the sandbag barricade. "He said they didn't have enough sandbags up there," she said softly.

So, the day before he was killed on the roof, Bruce said that he was "increasing the height of the sandbag barricade" because he didn't think it was high enough. No suggestion that he was unable to get his hands on enough sandbags to accomplish this task. No suggestion that there was a shortage of sandbags, only that they didn't have enough on the roof. Then, the next night there was an attack with an RPG, which "hit a sandbag," ricocheted and exploded against a water tower, apparently showering Bruce with shrapnel from above. So apparently there were enough sandbags to deflect the RPG. Would more sandbags have protected Bruce from above? Who knows, but one wouldn't think so.

Sandbags are not a high-tech device. It is up to soldiers in the field to protect themselves. If they want more sandbags, they should get more sandbags, as Cpl. Bruce apparently did. For Mark Dayton to suggest that the Bush administration somehow "immorally" deprived Bruce of sandbags is an absurdity that would be funny, if war were not a matter of life and death. Thankfully, Dayton will soon be gone from the Senate. His replacement can only be an improvement.

UPDATE: An Army Major agrees:

You nailed it 99% correct.  He had a good position providing a reasonable amount of protection for the situation.   My only addition - more sandbags could have provided overhead cover at this position and possibly saved the soldier's life.  He would have needed wood/timber to create a structure and then place sandbags on top of the wooden roof.    But you nailed it - the sandbags did their job and caused the rocket to ricochet away from the soldier, and how the shrapnel hit him was a freak accident.

We use the term "position improvement" for what was going on here.  You start with the basics and always improve on the position.  First some basic cover, then make it larger, then make it a walled area, then last of all add on the roof.

For the politician to blame this dead soldier on the president is just stupid.  He must think we're idiots and we'll believe anything he says without doing any intelligent analysis on our own.   Typical liberal.

UPDATE: A moonbat left-wing site called "Think Progress" attacked this post, suggesting that according to me, "it’s Cpl. Bruce’s fault that he couldn’t get his hands on enough bags to save his life." This is typical of the quality of argument we see on the left side of the blogosphere, which is why we virtually never argue with those people. Let me repeat it one more time, slowly, in hopes that the poor misguided folks who get their commentary from sites like "Think Progress" will be able to follow along: There is no evidence--none--zero--that Cpl. Bruce's tragic death had anything to do with a lack of sandbags. On the contrary, his girlfriend said that he told her that because he didn't think the sandbags had been stacked high enough, he was "increasing the height of the sandbag barricade." There was no suggestion--none--zero--that there was some kind of sandbag shortage that prevented him from making the barricade higher; on the contrary, he specifically said (if his girlfriend is correct) that that was what he was doing. And the RPG didn't hit him, it hit a sandbag.

All of this was in our original post, and the "Think Progress" people simply ignored it and misstated my point.

This is why we just don't get into disputes with these moonbat sites. There is no point in arguing with people who don't argue in good faith.

There is more news on this story, from today's Minneapolis Star Tribune, in an article titled "Army Vet Questions His Son's Death":

[Kenneth] Bruce, 60, is angry because he said his son, Cpl. Travis Bruce, 22, of Rochester, should not have received such an assignment. Guarding a police station, he said, is a job for a member of the Iraqi security force.

Bruce said that he thought the "sandbag shortage" theory was a misunderstanding:

According to [Senator Mark] Dayton, Travis Bruce had told his girlfriend a day before his death that he had not been able to obtain enough sandbags to fortify his post. [Ed.: As noted above, this is not what the paper reported yesterday.] Bruce said his son had never mentioned that to him, and he said it was probably a "slip of the tongue" by the girlfriend. She could not be reached for comment.

"Iraq is full of sand," he said. "... And if they didn't have enough sandbags, they should have had them up there. They were available."

Today's Strib suggests that Dayton is changing his tune, and is now criticizing the administration for not having completed the training of Iraqi forces so that dangerous assignments won't fall to Americans. In today's story, Dayton makes no mention of the "missing sandbag" theory.

Lest there be any misunderstanding, I wouldn't dream of criticizing either Cpl. Bruce or his father. By all accounts, Cpl. Bruce was a fine soldier, who had hoped to make the Army a career. His death was tragic, as is the death of every soldier. His father's reaction is entirely understandable, and far milder than my own reaction would probably be if my son were killed under these, or any other, circumstances. My objection was to Senator Dayton's use of this tragedy to further his own partisan political agenda.

For what it's worth, Cpl. Bruce was, and his father still is, a strong supporter of the Iraq war.