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Hernando Today

Troops Deserve Our Support

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By FRANCES EARL

Call to Patriots

Published: May 28, 2008

Memorial Day has come and gone and thoughts of all those who have given the most in the defense of our great nation are, hopefully, still in our minds and hearts. The brave young men and women who have sacrificed their lives to ensure our democracy and protect all of us from harm deserve to be in our thoughts every day.
D-Day during World War II was June 6, 1944, with the final defeat of Germany on May 8, 1945. Our first ground troops went to battle Japanese troops on Guadalcanal, landing on August 7, 1942, and our war with Japan ended on August 15, 1945. So many lost their lives in this war that was to end all wars, even though the duration of the conflict was only three years.
The invasion of Iraq began on March 19, 2003, and still there is no end in sight.
Those killed in action in Iraq and Afghanistan, we are told, now number more than 4,000 and, to some of us, that may seem like a small number of losses compared to the numbers reported from World War II. This administration tells us that more than 24,000 have been wounded severely enough to be unfit for further service. It seems, however, that there is a discrepancy in these numbers. There has been a steady and frightening increase in suicides in our military, and these deaths are, or should be, attributable to this act of aggression. This may bring our number of deaths to more than 10,000.
One of the aspects of this "war" that differs greatly from all others is that our servicemen and women are not fighting against uniformed troops. There is no way for our troops to know who may be ready to throw a grenade or who is planting those roadside bombs. If they fire their weapons, they are firing against people in civilian clothes.
Is it any wonder that their fear and anxiety about their very survival is a constant when they cannot identify the "enemy?" Should we be surprised that our men and women return home with post-traumatic stress syndrome and memories that many find rob them of sleep and make them unable to readjust to normal society?
Instead of receiving the medical and psychiatric care they require, they are denied the treatment that may make normal life possible. These men and women were not suicidal before their service in Iraq/Afghanistan. These problems are directly connected to their experiences there, and they should be counted along with our other dead when they put a gun to their heads or hang themselves in the garage.
U.S. Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite, R-Brooksville, purported patron saint of the vets and the troops, co-sponsored the recent GI Bill2008 (HR2642) to improve the care of our vets and restore to our current troops the full benefits given to our older vets — education, health, etc. However, when the day came to vote for this sorely needed bill, Ms. Brown-Waite voted against the very bill she co-sponsored.
That's right, she voted no!
We were not supposed to notice her no vote, and only remember her as the co-sponsor. What a travesty she has added to a string of votes against the vets and against the very principles of our democracy over her years of supporting this administration. Can the many veterans of previous wars, those who came home and got the chance for a college education and received good health care, not want to see these sorely earned benefits restored to the younger men and women coming home from a fight where they cannot know if the people they killed were really the "enemy" or just innocent civilians because there are no uniforms, no way to identify the "enemy"?
If anyone should be fighting to honor these returning troops and fighting to vote out of office anyone who is not totally supporting them, it is those who returned home to be treated honorably and fairly.
With no end in sight to an illegal act of aggression put in motion with no real plan, we now see Bush and the boys shake their sabers at Iran as well. Are we not in deep enough already? Our country is going broke paying for a game that AWOL Dubya is playing to enrich Halliburton and others, and McCain thinks staying there for 100 years sounds good to him.
Since McCain has actively sought support from ministers like Rev. Hagee who has labeled the Catholic Church "God's whores" and only threw him under the bus when he followed up with his pronouncement that "Hitler was fulfilling God's will" to force the Jews to return to Israel, can any sane person want him as president?
Guess the Jewish vote was more important than the Catholic vote?
If we truly honor our heroes, we must strive to bring them home and to never allow this horror to happen again!

Frances Earl, a former vice president of the Hernando County Democratic Central Committee, can be contacted at fearl@tampabay.rr.com.

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