NATIONAL GUARD: Guard families launch Internet campaign to bring unit home

[seemslikeadream]

Posted on Tue, Apr. 20, 2004


NATIONAL GUARD: Guard families launch Internet campaign to bring unit home


MADISON, Wis. — Some families upset that a Wisconsin National Guard unit had its tour of duty in Iraq extended 120 days now say they hope their Internet campaign will reduce the obligation.

"We realize the extension has gone through. We are hoping this might shorten it," Linda Aber of Racine said Monday.

Aber helped set up a Web site calling on President Bush and members of Congress to intervene on the 32nd Military Police Company's behalf and allow the unit to come home.

Aber, whose 22-year-old daughter Kelli is with the company, acknowledged the letter and e-mail campaign lost steam when U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld officially signed off on the 120-day extension Thursday.

"Obviously, we are not going at it with the rage we had been going," she said.

About 160 members of the police company based in Madison and Milwaukee have been in Iraq since March 2003.

more
http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/news/local/states/wisconsin/8470120.htm?1c

[rooboy]

1. As soon as it takes hold...

Fox will get a bunch of pro-war Guard families to bullshit the public into thinking this movement is a minority. Just like the 9/11 families.

[Mari333]

2. The families are sick of it

and Rummy says the troops are "fungible".
We all know what the Bush admin thinks of the troops. They mean nothing to them
bring them home now
http://www.bringthemhomenow.com

[seemslikeadream]

3. Fungible to the long hard slog

1165th's delayed return sparks anger, questions

04/20/04

By JEAN LAKEMAN HELMS
Staff Reporter


"The frustration level is very high," said Joe Birin delli of Fairhope, one of the organizers of the 1165th's family support group. The group met Saturday with Guard officers at the James P. Nix Center in Fairhope to discuss the extension, Birindelli said.

Some family members left believing their loved ones might not be home until Christmas; government officials, however, said the current plan would have the soldiers home by late summer.

"Of course, there was a lot of anger and a lot of venting," Birindelli said. "There were a lot of parents and spouses and they needed to vent. There were a couple of colonels from National Guard headquarters, too. They took the brunt of it."

"We found out that if they really wanted to, they could keep them until 2005," Bacon said. "These guys need to come home. These guys are not professional soldiers. They're supposed to be defending our state, not off fighting a war."

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[Moderator]

5. seemslikeadream

Per DU copyright rules
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DU Moderator

[seemslikeadream]

4. Disappointment doesn't even begin to describe

Disappointment doesn't even begin to describe what the Welch family of Whitehall is feeling now that the two sons they expected to leave Iraq won't be.


John and Janet Welch's two sons, PFC William Welch and Spec. Richard Welch were to end their tour of duties in Iraq this month after fighting there for a year. But the recent uprisings throughout Iraq will delay their homecoming and that of the Army's 1st Armored Division they serve with, possibly by as much as six months.
"I am heartbroken," said Bill and Rick's mom, Janet Welch.
"When they called I just couldn't believe it."
Just two weeks ago, John, Janet and youngest son, Andy, were eagerly anticipating seeing their sons and brothers again, and were busy planning the big July 4 weekend wedding for Bill and Janet, the Montague woman he quickly married before a justice of the peace right before shipping out to Iraq a year ago.
Now, the wedding is canceled for the second time. Young Janet is waiting for her husband at Ft. Polk, Louisiana, but she's coming home to Whitehall that weekend anyway, and is very upset over the matter, according to her mother-in-law.
Rick, Bill's younger brother serving as a Blackhawk helicopter mechanic at Rasheed Airbase, southeast of Baghdad, was to have left Iraq the Wednesday before Easter. He learned just hours before shipping out that he wasn't going anywhere.

more
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=11344578&BRD=2052&PAG=461&dept_id=381172&rfi=6