Flight 93 Widow Protests Bush's Visit (AP)

[DinahMoeHum]

Link:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1019-01.htm

(snip)
A few hundred feet from where President Bush would soon promote his antiterrorism record, one woman dissented. Melodie Homer visited the landscaped spot in Marlton between a playground and a soccer field that serves as memorial to her husband, Leroy W. Homer Jr., copilot of United Airlines Flight 93. On Sept. 11, 2001, passengers and crew on his plane fought off terrorists, causing it to crash into a field near Shanksville, Pa., before it could reach an apparent target in Washington - perhaps the White House or the Capitol.

Homer, a Canadian citizen, cannot vote in the presidential election, but she has clear feelings about Bush's record on terrorism. "I do believe that the President and his administration were responsible for Sept. 11," said Homer, who lives in Evesham.
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(snip)
She said her husband, an Air Force veteran of Operation Desert Storm, was a reservist and a Democrat.
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She said she was especially troubled when the President appeared on the deck of an aircraft carrier last year before a banner that read "Mission Accomplished." While the banner raised the hackles of many Bush opponents, what troubled Homer most was what Bush was wearing.

"My husband is a major. He has the right to wear the flight suit," she said. Bush, however, "was wearing it like a costume."
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:grr:

[Lavender Brown]

1. Brave woman.

I'm glad that some 9/11 survivors are calling Bush on his abuse of 9/11 as a campaign tool.

[Lisa]

2. thank you SO MUCH for posting!

I went to school with Melodie Homer, in Canada. Her folks still live just a few streets away from mine. I've been wondering how she feels about all of this -- saw her on TV a couple of years ago when Bush visited the crash site. She was in the back row. She's the kind of person who, if she approves of someone, would have been right up in front shaking hands -- but the fact she was looking at him in that way made me suspect that she did not approve.

Even back in grade 6 she didn't take guff from anybody. She's a warm and generous person (she was kind to me even though I was a new kid at the school) -- at an age where a lot of girls are giggling about boys and getting married someday, she wasn't like that. She wanted to do something with her life. I was very upset to learn that she had finally met someone and married him, and then he was killed ... she never even had a chance to say goodbye. Leroy Homer must have been a class act, because Melodie would only choose the best.