Carol Korreck: A Soldier's Mother Recalls 'Mission Accomplished'

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http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/978

Carol Korreck: A Soldier's Mother Recalls 'Mission Accomplished'
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Tue, 05/01/2007 - 2:47pm. Reader Contribution

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION
by Carol Korreck

I wrote the following letter in May 2003. After watching the "Mission Accomplished" performance by my son's "commander-in-chief," I was appalled.

Four years later, he is still in office. 3212 soldiers have died since he strutted around in the worst of his photo-ops, pretending to be an aviator and a leader. 3351 soldiers have died since the start of his war. If his mission was to wreak havoc of global proportions, then he has succeeded. Today he threatens to veto an appropriations bill that contains timelines for withdrawal from Iraq. It will be interesting to see if the threat of veto was all talk, because ultimately the bill allows for what he has been aiming for all along.

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In reading my letter that is now four years old, it is sad that so little has changed. Bush and Cheney should have been impeached by now.

May 7, 2003

Dear Mr. Bush,

As I write this letter I feel a certain amount of futility. I received no acknowledgment when I first wrote in October, or with any of my subsequent correspondence.

But I realize I am not the only one that was shunned because of conflicting opinions on war with Iraq.

Almost 1000 combat veterans signed on to a letter sent to you March 10 requesting a personal meeting as they had experience in conflict and combat and you do not. They hoped you would be open to their wisdom and knowledge and freely offered their time and expertise but they received no response.

The Conference of European churches representing 125 Christian Churches also sent a letter dated February 19 and they never received a response to their request for a meeting.

As I watched footage of your landing on the U.S.S. Lincoln last week and listened to the speech about major combat being over, I found myself nauseated. While your political theatrics are being launched in hopes of getting the popularity polls up, paving the way for re-election, my son is still in danger in Baghdad.

Your feeble attempt at camaraderie with returning soldiers was patronizing in my opinion.

My son spent days pent up in a Bradley rushing across the Iraq desert and spent weeks on adrenaline, MRE's and very little sleep trying to keep himself and his fellow soldiers alive.

My son will come back a 20-year-old combat veteran. Do not even try to pretend to have any regard for what he and his comrades have been through - the sights, the smells, the sounds they will have etched forever in their memories.

If research proves correct, from 1972-1973 when our country was at war and you were supposed to be an active member of the Texas Air National Guard, there is an unexplained absence of over a year on your record of service. I believe that is called desertion.

A day after Congress passed a "Support the Troops" Resolution, you proposed a budget cut that slashes veteran benefits and health care. How dare you call yourself a supporter of the troops?

Your lack of support is pathetically obvious when you are betraying the very soldiers you have sent into combat. You call them heroes and try to stir up patriotism, but tomorrow they will be forgotten heroes.

Why isn't Sgt. Joe Hooper a household name? He earned 37 medals in Vietnam -- the most decorated soldier of that war.

He is a forgotten hero, just like the veterans in the VA hospitals and those now suffering from the effects of agent orange or Gulf war syndrome and the soldiers who have been exposed to depleted uranium and who have sustained injuries that have left them with permanent disabilities.

Will they feel like heroes when they cannot get basic health care? It will soon become painfully clear to our new combat veterans how little value their commander-in-chief really places on the sacrifice they made for their country. Your actions speak much louder than your words. Your budget cuts show where your priorities are.

You will close your eyes at night and see $$$ as you reap the "back door" benefits of all the corporations making millions off this war? My son will most likely see images of mangled bodies, wounded children and major devastation. Army surgeons have come back to their troops to get supplies for the children's hospital in Baghdad -- collecting soaps and toiletries from the soldiers to take back to the doctors.

Where were the priorities placed? Bechtel, Carlyle, Halliburton -- I guess there is no profit in humanitarian relief, or basic aid would be further along.

People in the US are guilty of misplaced trust -- in their political leaders, and in the media. Misguided ignorance may have put you in office, but my hope is that the American public begins to see itself as responsible for searching out the truth of the war in Iraq and the lies and manipulation we are being subjected to while covert agendas are being carried out by our country's leaders.

To quote Andy Jacobs Jr., combat veteran and retired congressman in Indiana: "To die for one's country's politicians as a campaign gimmick is to be victimized by a cold blooded atrocity etched in eternity."

There is no connection between Hussein and September 11. There are no weapons of mass destruction. Anti-American sentiment is growing stronger while we are supposed to believe that our government is not "prepping" Iraq for leadership we can bribe and control. This administration seems to think it does not owe the American people, or for that matter, the world, any explanation for what it does.

Might makes right may be how the bullies in the grade school parking lot justify their aggression, but is that how we now run our country? Political policy seems to be dictated by those with power and big pocketbooks. We don't even have a democracy here any more, how can we help Iraq to create a democratic society?

I think Korean War veteran Wilson Powell spoke for many veterans and active duty soldiers when he said, "Wrapping myself in the flag and blindly following the lead of a man who has never served into the morass of an endless war is not my way of loving and serving my country."

I am an American, proudly supporting the men and women who are and have served this country, but I will no longer cower to the fallacy that I must support my president as well.

Carol Korreck

A BUZZFLASH READER CONTRIBUTION