Seattle, November 11 (RHC)-- In the United States, Iraq war veteran and antiwar activist Tomas Young has died just weeks before his 35th birthday. He died of medical complications on Monday at this home in Seattle.

In 2004, Young was paralyzed by a bullet to the spine while deployed in Iraq. One of the first U.S. veterans to come out publicly against the war of aggression against Iraq, he spent the rest of his life protesting against the U.S. invasion. He joined the peace organization Iraq Veterans Against the War.

Tomas Young wrote a letter to former U.S. President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. The letter read, in part: "My day of reckoning is upon me. Yours will come. I hope you will be put on trial. But mostly I hope, for your sakes, that you find the moral courage to face what you have done to me and to many, many others who deserved to live."

In other news, as the United States marks Veterans Day today, the Department of Veterans Affairs has announced it may fire 1,000 staffers amid a scandal over waiting times and other healthcare failures.