A Letter to our Congress and Senate

I'm a 22 year Marine Corps veteran and am hoping you will support whatever measures arise to end the use of our military as fodder in this useless "war on terror."  A fabricated 60-page dossier provided by Tony Blair's intelligence folks prompted us to jump head-first into a war where our troops have no real plan for success.  President Bush's failures cannot not be undone.  Lost lives can't be justified.  His mistakes, and those of anyone who follows blindly must have a penalty. 

The mere fact that even our military leaders can't agree on a path should be a clear sign that the facts are being ignored and so are the legitimate concerns of the American people.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that too many have seen this as an opportunity to profit or forward their careers.  Truth be told, upon whose back did they have to climb and how many dead bodies are beneath the heels of their dress shoes!

The young men and women currently serving in harm's way need to know our plan to succeed in Iraq and when they can expect to return home.  What's more, with broken families, stress and paranoia trailing closely behind them and uncertainty, they need to know how many times they are going to be sent back! 

These young people are volunteers...true patriots of our nation.  We cannot treat them as horribly as was done with regard to the Tuskeegee experiment many years ago.  Our troops, our sons and daughters, our husbands and wives, our mothers and fathers, are not expendible. 

Respect them and honor them by providing them with straight answers.  They know there are terrorists in the world, but are we going about it correctly?  Will we regret this war and look back with disdain as we do at the Vietnam Conflict?  Will we let Bush's war legacy continue to tarnish the world's view of us?

Please don't turn away from this stark reality.  Please demand answers and hold yourselves accountable to us, your constituents.

God bless you with your tough responsibility.  I pray you will be one of the ones who can honestly look in the mirror and know you did what had to be done.

Respectfully,

Donna Perdue
Akron, OH

this is appalling.  from usa today:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2008-05-07-nondeploy_N.htm

soldiers who are medically unfit for combat were sent anyway.  what the hell is going on here?

a harrowing reminder of what's going on in the world right now.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24381506

what are we doing to our family?  how long can this go on?  from huffington post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-shaw/reading-the-pictures-idon_b_96696.html

I had a feeling when I posted the following at 4:00 this morning that I should have waited until around now to do so. It has been bothering me ever since and because it something so important and appalling I feel a need to post it one more time on behalf of our Military over seas.

Our Female Soldiers Need Our Help Now!

A fellow blogger, and I am so sorry I don’t remember who it was, shared some information recently about supporting our military people in Iraq and Afghanistan, one of the links given was for anysoldier.com. Have any of you ever gone in there to read about our men and women over there and look at the pictures they've posted? If not you really should; I believe it will be an eye opener for a lot of people.

As I read about the different units with young men and women, most of them kids, from all over the United States and looked at their pictures it wasn’t long before I started noticing a very disturbing pattern.  Our military is not, in very plain English, NOT, providing our women with the very basic of necessities that women need.

To put it gently from men making the requests “the females are asking for girlie things and “needs” – “My female soldiers need the items that only women know about and understand”.

In polite terms from some, “Please send feminine hygiene products as our PX carries very little of this for them and it is always in short supply” – “Female products can be hard to come by” – “items for females are  tampons they are a hard find out here”

To put it in plain English from others, “please continue to send feminine items (ie. feminine wipes, pads, liners, tampons)…” - “for the females: Nonscented baby wipes, Tampons (plastic), Thin pads, These specifics we don't have or can't get very often in our area” – “Most of our female soldiers are going without necessary feminine products i.e. tampons, spray, napkins, etc”

This is beyond deplorable! Once I began seeing the pattern, I spent hours reading the different requests. This is not just a few units asking, requesting, and even almost begging for these items, this is a majority of units with women in Combat Areas. Not only are these items in extremely short supply but also as far as a PX or “shopette” goes they are either very small carrying very, very, little that goes very quickly and/or are miles away and therefore not easily accessible. They desperately need our help.

Our government has spent over $500 BILLION dollars on this war and our soldiers are NOT being taken care of.  Where is all that money going?

FIVE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS and our government cannot even provide the basic of necessities for our military people… please tell me I am not the only one angered by this.

Other than female hygiene products the one thing requested by many men and women are just letters from home. It doesn’t matter if you’re a stranger they are homesick and most have a long time before they will see home again. All they want is to know someone cares about them, knows they are there and to hear a little about our everyday life in the states. When I repeatedly read of the soldiers that still have not received one piece of mail from anyone…just a simple letter… and “how sad it is to see these soldiers faces when their name is not called at mail call”, I cried. Most of the ones that don’t receive any mail are single, many with no families. I wanted to adopt every one of them right then and there; I still do.

I have been going into anysoldier.com every night for the past week desperately trying to think of some way of helping these women and any men and women that don’t receive a simple letter. Common sense hit me first, I am not wealthy or even close, I cannot adopt them all, I must choose whom I can realistically  help but that doesn’t ease my mind much as that still leaves thousands of women and men that are going without. I’ve come to the conclusion that I must do what most of these women and men cannot do, I am spreading their requests for help beyond that website to anyone that reads my words.

It’s so easy and at the least it will only cost you a postage stamp, at the most, well that depends on what you can afford and how much you want to help but whichever you can do either one will fill your heart with a wonderful feeling and mean so much more to a soldier in need. Just go to anysoldier.com, read their FAQ real quick to familiarize yourself with the site, it will only take you a few minutes and is worth reading! They have a very nice search feature so you can sort the contacts by sex, state, branch, country stationed, etc. As they say on their site, Warning, this is addicting! I would like to add that before you decide to request a contacts address to make sure you are ready to respond by either a letter or a letter and a package otherwise people assume those requests will be responding giving a false number.

I am especially asking all the women on here to spread the word and start putting together basic needs care packages for the women we have overseas and this includes women in remote regions of Afghanistan and Germany but most are in Iraq. If you can’t afford to send a package on your own get with your family and friends, your knitting circle, book club, sorority or parents group and do one together and don’t forget to include a few special girlie items such as nice smelling lotion, shampoo and conditioner. Have the kids do pictures the next time you have play dates to include too. Whatever you can put together and send they will so dearly love and appreciate. However, you need to keep in mind that you may not hear back from your soldier/unit since many are in situations that don’t allow them to do so, or they don’t have the means; most of them do try though especially if you include writing paper, envelopes and pens/pencils; they do not need stamps.

As of this past January, the US Post Office has put together a special overseas care package mailing kit that costs you nothing and even though you only pay postage as far as either New York or California, they have lowered the cost of postage on these special packages and mailers making it even cheaper to send.

If you are one of those that love to send letters to Washington then please start doing so for the sake of our soldiers. It doesn’t matter if you are a Hillary, Obama or McCain supporter, the important thing is that our military women and men are not being taken care of the best they can be and should be and we all need to take action on it now.

I am in no way, shape, or form affiliated with anysoldier.com; I am just someone who cares.

Jan

from rolling stone:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/19733160/the_troubled_homecoming_of_the_marlboro_marine

it seems that many americans are unaware and uninformed about the situation in iraq.  certainly our mainstream media has done little to expose the atrocities which occur on a daily basis.  i hope americans will see this movie, reviewed here by the ny times.

http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/03/28/movies/28stop.html?th&emc=th

 this is a true story, verified by snopes and others: 

Back in September of 2005, on the first day of school, Martha Cothren, a social studies school teacher at Robinson High School in Little Rock, did something not to be forgotten. On the first day of school, with permission of the school superintendent, the principal and the building supervisor, she took all of the desks out of the classroom.

The kids came into first period, they walked in, there were no desks. They obviously looked around and said, "Ms. Cothren, where's our desk?" And she said, "You can't have a desk until you tell me how you earn them."

They thought, "Well, maybe it's our grades."

"No," she said. "Maybe it's our behavior."

And she told them, "No, it's not even your behavior."

And so they came and went in the first period, still no desks in the classroom. Second period, same thing. Third period. By early afternoon television news crews had gathered in Ms. Cothren's class to find out about this crazy teacher who had taken all the desks out of the classroom.

The last period of the day, Martha Cothren gathered her class. They were at this time sitting on the floor around the sides of the room. And she says, "Throughout the day no one has really understood how you earn the desks that sit in this classroom ordinarily." She said, "Now I'm going to tell you."

Martha Cothren went over to the door of her classroom and opened it, and as she did 27 U.S. veterans , wearing their uniforms, walked into that classroom, each one carrying a school desk. And they placed those school desks in rows, and then they stood along the wall. And by the time they had finished placing those desks, those kids for the first time I think perhaps in their lives understood how they earned those desks.

Martha said, "You don't have to earn those desks. These guys did it for you. They put them out there for you, but it's up to you to sit here responsibly to learn, to be good students and good citizens, because they paid a price for you to have that desk, and don't ever forget it."