Stars and Stripes letters: We need them back/Get out and vote

[lebkuchen]

We need them back

I don’t have any questions regarding the extension of our soldiers because I am speechless.

Right now I'm praying for guidance and understanding. I need wisdom to help me deal with this extension.

Almost a year has passed and I have had to take care of my family as if I were a widow. The pain and loneliness make me feel this way. I am not the only one, but I have noticed that it is more difficult because I have two teenagers and a 6-year-old.

My little one has been drawing pictures of crying people. “This is Dad and this is me and we cry because we don’t have each other,” she explains.

She has been crossing out the days on our calendar. How can I explain the new decision to her? Should I say, “Oh no, dear ... we have to add 120 more little squares to the calendar and THAT is when Daddy will back ... if he comes.”

I am a proud military wife. I support our troops, but a year is more than enough. It has been a year of sleepless nights and pain because we don’t know if they are coming back. We never now what is going to happen next.

We ran out of explanations for our children. Our husbands went to Iraq to help the people, but what about us? What about the emotional support that the wives and children need?

Yes, they joined the Army and they have to serve. That is their job, and of course my husband is proud of his job and how he represents the U.S. armed forces. Please understand my point: After a year, we need them back!

Ivette Torres
Baumholder, Germany

Get out and vote

I have just read letters from the very disappointed wives whose husbands will be extended for another 120 days in country in Iraq.

Ladies, as the daughter of a 20-year Navy man, a former WAC and the wife of a 30-year Navy man, I can empathize. My husband did Vietnam repeatedly from 1969 until the last load of boat people floated out.

However, you all have to realize that these types of decisions are made by men who are out of touch with the reality of day-to-day life of the serviceperson and his/her family. Our husbands are not people, they are materiel needed to meet an objective.

Unfortunately, this objective happens to be the re-election of Bush II and the enrichment of his cronies at Halliburton. I think we did something good in Afghanistan. Iraq is just an exercise in pique for the First Cheerleader. Unfortunately, his snit is costing the lives of our young people.

If you want to change things now and for the future of your husbands and this country, vote! Read every newspaper you can get you hands on. Go on line and read the English editions of the foreign press, including Al-Jazeera and Al Arabia. I do not support what the Arab press is saying. But how better to fight your enemy than to know everything you can about how he thinks?

Get out there, organize fellow wives, write letters to your elected representatives, register to vote, organize drives to help get military family members who are eligible to register. Remind people to get their absentee ballots. Jeb Bush may have been able to steal the election once for his brother and get away with it. However, if it happens again, we as a country are getting just what we deserve — a corrupt administration elected by a corrupted system because of an apathetic and lazy electorate.

Ladies, we will only be treated as badly as we allow ourselves to be treated. Our husbands have a duty to perform. So do we. We need to make every effort to be informed citizens who vote and participate in the political process. Let the professional politicians know that we are watching and we are voting.

Patricia Wilson
DeBary, Fla.

Enough is enough

I have a son who joined the Army a year ago and a husband who’s been in for 17 years, and both of them are in Iraq with the 1st Armored Division. I also have a 7-year-old daughter, and she can’t understand why she has to keep waiting for her brother and father to come home.

I understand very well my husband’s responsibilities. But enough is enough. This is not about our freedom or terrorism. It’s about politics. I know that there are a lot of spouses who feel the same way I do, but they’re afraid to speak up. But you know what? I’m very proud of my son and my husband, and I’ll do whatever it takes to bring them back home.

Ermelinda Navarro
Baumholder, Germany

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=125&article=21685