Tomas Young, the 33-year-old veteran and author of “The Last Letter: A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney from a Dying Veteran,” appeared with his wife on “Democracy Now!” on Thursday to talk about his decision to end his life amid unrelenting pain and suffering from wounds sustained in the Iraq War, and to read his letter aloud.

“The reason I decided to do this now is I am, on one hand, sick and tired of being sick and tired, and on the other hand I don’t want to watch my body waste away,” Young said on the show.

When asked whether anything could persuade him not to end his life in the next few months, Young responded: “Not at this moment. There may come a time in the future when I say, ‘Hey, things are getting better; maybe I should reconsider this.’ But at this moment, nothing in this world has made me change my mind as to what I’m going to do.”

Phil Donahue, a former MSNBC talk show host who was fired from the supposedly liberal network in 2003 for bringing too many anti-war voices on his program, joined the conversation on “Democracy Now!” to discuss the mainstream media’s complicity in taking the nation into the now 10-year-old war.

— Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

‘Democracy Now!’: