Tonight I stumbled across the webpage for an organization entitled Iraq Veterans Against the War. After reading up on their cause and mission — standing against the Iraq War for the objective of bringing all our troops home safely and ending what they term as an illegal war — and seeing the profiles of all the military members, current and former, who are members of IVAW, I want to become a member myself.
I don’t for one second believe that you can’t support the troops without also supporting the war. Supporting the troops means keeping their interests at heart, and that is bringing them home safely. Not sending them out to the killing fields for go-around after go-around, and then neglecting them when they come home as we did with our precious Vietnam veterans.
Yes, when you sign a contract, whether it be four, eight, or twenty years with the respective branch of service you join, you’re locked in. But when you sign up you are also expressing faith in your nation’s leadership to capably and morally uphold the will of the people.
Poll after poll shows that national disapproval with the Iraq War is constant. I disapprove of it myself, and I went over there.
I will say there is a ton of good going on over there that the media does not report for whatever reason. With the good comes the bad, and whatever good is accomplished in Iraq, is negated by the bad once the soldiers come home. We have soldiers, Marines, airmen and sailors coming home with physical, spiritual and emotional wounds that take much more time to heal than the six to fifteen months they spend over in Iraq.
The place we lovingly call the Sandbox has now become a quagmire. I don’t know why our President and Congress (you can’t solely blame this war on President Bush if you understand how our system of government works) decided to get involved in a thousands of years-old conflict between Isaac and Ishmael, but it has had dire consequences.
It’s about time we all step up and write our congressmen, make our voices heard and do something about our feelings on this war. Our feelings are nothing if we don’t put action behind them, and America won’t pull out of a war it CANNOT win if the people don’t rally in a respectful and dignified manner.
That’s something I feel the folks over at Iraq Veterans Against the War are doing, and I fully support them. Heck, I might even join IVAW.
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