WHY I'M SO ANGRY

It seems my last post has drawn some private comments from family members and friends who wonder why I am so angry about this war; why, in fact, I seem angrier than usual.

I explained that I had reached a tipping point--for lack of a better word--in my studies about the war.

First of all, I felt an intense frustration when it became apparent that no matter what the Iraq Study Group came up with, this president was not going to heed any of their suggestions and was, in fact, trying to come up with alternatives and ass-covering before they had even completed their report.

Then, when the report finally was released, well, the good news is that at least it finally opened up a real debate on the war, which should have been conducted back in 2002, but wasn't, because for anyone to have asked any of the questions which are now being asked every day, was to result in them consequently being attacked for such supposed crimes as hating the military, not supporting the troops, not being a patriot, and worse.

So, we're finally asking honest questions about the war. That's the good news.

The bad news is that the suggestions which are being taken the most seriously in the media are already moot.

Training Iraqi troops is, to quote Bob Herbert of the New York Times, "sheer fantasy." We've BEEN training the troops, and arming them, and supplying them, and supporting them, for THREE YEARS and nothing has come of it. They loot their own barracks, sell their own weapons on the street, stand by while atrocities are commited by their own people in front of their eyes, and even join in the ethnic genocide on occasion. If they are thrust into combat, they freeze and panic, endangering any Americans in the area.

Embedding more Americans to train more Iraqis is pointless.

The truth is that we can't get out and we can't stay, and every day that we debate back and forth, another blue sedan drives slowly up to another house, and two uniformed officers knock on another door. Last Wednesday, there were eleven such visits, in that one day alone, and since then, ten more.

Every day that we debate, another soldier or Marine gets his legs blown off or her hands blown off or his head turned to cantaloupe by a sniper. And we are averaging TEN TIMES the number of critically wounded to the number who perish.

From the very beginning, those of us who have made a business of studying not just politics, but military history, have known that this would happen, and we endured the most outrageous attacks on our character and persons for simply speaking the truth.

You see a train coming. A car straddles the track. You scream and yell at the driver and passengers to get off the track. Instead, they roll down the car windows and shout insults at you, mocking you, while the train barrells down on them.

Then your own son climbs into the car, just before the train hits.

That's how it felt to be me in 2002.

But once this country committed and sent our troops into harm's way, it should have thrown the full power of its resources into the fray, backing our troops in every sense of the word. Building barricades, so to speak, around that car sitting on the track.

It didn't. To quote our secretary of defense, "You go to war with the army you have," not, apparently, the army you desperately need to complete the mission.

Still, I have held back on advocating complete pull-out for the exact same reason I chose not to protest the Vietnam war when my brother, father, future husband and brother-in-law fought; even after bright handsome young soldiers who kissed me good-night on my front porch lost their lives over there--I did not protest the war because I did not want their sacrifices to have been in vain.

So I did not advocate pulling out of Iraq because I wanted so desperately for my son's sacrifices and those of his buddies to have COUNTED for something.

For three years I read everything I could get my hands on from every source imaginable, questioned every troop I knew personally about his impressions when he returned, listened respectfully to their horror stories, prayed for them nightly, and when they were deployed, did everything in my power to let them know that they were not forgotten, with care packages, letters, cards, and constant reminders that they were supported.

I always kept my thoughts about this war to myself with them, because I thought they deserved the respect they had earned with their service, and I would never have ever done anything to make them feel bad, since soldiers and Marines go where they are ordered and serve with honor, even if they harbor their own doubts. And believe me, they had doubts.

I tried and tried to find hope about this war somewhere. I searched for "good news" stories that the conservatives swore were out there; I did my best to ferret out information that would prove me wrong.

If only I could have been proven wrong, it would have been so much easier. If somehow I could have been convinced that that train was going to apply the brakes just in time.

But over the course of time, the onslaught of truth about what was really happening just swept over any good that had been accomplished, and it has been like watching that train plow through the car, killing some of the occupants, crippling some, and endangering my own loved ones.

I would pray and cry in despair about what it meant for men and women like my son who kept getting sent back and back and back again to this war, and every time they returned, it was worse, and every time they were deployed, they knew they were playing Russian Roulette with their lives.

And I looked around, and I saw how this country was not being asked to sacrifice for its own war. I saw how they hit the remote rather than watch more war news, how they had no idea where "Fallujah" was, how their lives were never affected by this ongoing relentless tragedy. How the young men would buy video games that made them feel as if they were RIGHT THERE, except, of course, that they weren't, and the danger was only a game.

I watched how good people, well-meaning people, thought that if they just hung that flag outside the front door, slapped yellow ribbon magnets on their cars, donated a little money for care packages at Christmastime, forwarded e-mail prayers and sentimental soldier-stories, why, they were SUPPORTING THE TROOPS.

Nice gestures. Really. But it would mean so much more if, for instance, they backed a national draft and infused the armed forces with thousands more troops who could take the pressure off the current all-volunteer force.

But that's not going to happen. Nobody wants to sacrifice THAT much.

So, I saw the same families shouldering this terrible burden time and time and time again, and young families being pulled apart, and children growing up without their mamas and daddies, and troops being asked to fight without proper equipment or back-up.

I saw what repeated deployments did to my loved ones who served, and served, and served again. I saw how angry they became each successive time. Other Marine parents and I had lengthy phone conversations and passed long e-mails, wondering how in the world are we going to be able to help our boys???

What could we SAY to them? What could we possibly SAY?

And I wrote condolence letters to the moms who would never have a chance to say another word to their boys, and did what I could to support those mothers whose sons were so gravely wounded that they would never, ever, be the same again.

And something happened to me inside. Call it a tipping point. Call it a breaking point.

Call it rage. Call it despair. Call it whatever you want.

But the truth of the matter is this:

The young men and women who put on their uniforms or cammies and go out to serve this nation are the bravest, the best, and the brightest this country has to offer.

They work harder than anybody else in this great nation, and they do it for little pay and no rewards other than the service itself.

Their patriotism and sense of duty is a sacred trust.

And you better think long and hard before you send them off to die.

If you do it for any reason other than the most noble, honorable, and utterly, absolutely neccessary...then you have betrayed that sacred trust.

These idealistic young men and women like my son who enlisted after 9-11 did so because they thought they would be fighting terrorists in Afghanistan.

Instead, they were sent into a swamp and left to rot.

Now, while the politicians scramble to find the best way to preserve their legacies, these men and women are dying. Every day.

They are dying.

They are dying.

I cry out for them, and for their families, because this war is PERSONAL, not just to me, but to all who gave this country that sacred trust.

How can you NOT feel rage?

How can you not want to DO something, at least to SAY SOMETHING, to speak truth to power, to shout out a protest loud and long in the hopes that somewhere, somehow, you will be heard.

If enough of us shout long enough and loud enough, then somebody, somewhere will finally move that car off the railroad tracks, and troops that might have gone home in a body bag will instead get to spend a Christmas at home with their families.

And then, it will all have been worth it.