A Letter to Senator Diane Feinstein
by Anne Roesler
Senator Diane Feinstein
United States Senate
331 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510
May 10, 2006
Dear Senator Feinstein,
My son is a 27 year old staff sergeant in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, and he has spent almost 2 of the last 3 years in Iraq. He recently returned home from his 3rd deployment, and for that I am thankful. However, it is clear to me that he will never be the same. I’ve watched him turn from a sensitive young man, who wore his heart on his sleeve and was in awe of being “in the cradle of civilization,” into someone who is filled with so much rage that he can barely speak. You may think his anger is directed at the Iraqis or at those who’ve been variously described as terrorists and insurgents, and on some level you’d be correct. However, those with whom he is most angry sit in Washington, D.C. He is angry at all of our leaders for taking us into and supporting this war – a war that he questioned from the beginning, and he is now convinced is illegal and unjust. He has told me that he’s “tired of putting kids in body bags, so that some people’s pockets can be lined with blood money.” He has told me that he feels betrayed – betrayed by our elected Congressional representatives who have the power to stop this war, yet remain silent. He has told me that troop morale is low, and the reason for that is because “our government sends us back over, and over, and over again.” Prior to his last deployment, I asked him what his mission was; he replied, “I don’t know what our mission is; I haven’t known for a long time. All I know is that when I get over there, it’s me or them.” Is this what freedom and democracy are about? Our loved ones are fighting solely to keep themselves and each other alive.
My son is a very thoughtful and extraordinarily responsible person, who believes that we should each be accountable for our actions. When he signed the contract and took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution over nine years ago, he did so in good faith. While he questioned the rationale for the invasion of Iraq, he deployed with his division when he received his orders. He deployed twice more after that because he said that, although he knew the elections were just arbitrary signposts that would make very little difference in the course of events in Iraq, he believed that he had to return because the U.S. had made a commitment to ensure the elections were held, and this was the only way he could live with his actions in Iraq. He called me from Iraq the day after the elections were held in December, and he said, “This is as close to a win as we’re going to get here. If we don’t get out now, we’re looking at another Vietnam.” It appears that he wasn’t far from the truth. We now have over 2,400 soldiers and marines dead, 254 of them are from California. We have thousands suffering from physical injuries, 1 out of every 4-6 is returning from Iraq with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.
This nightmare began for us in February 2003, when my son deployed to Iraq for his first tour. I did not hear from him until May 2003, and while I was ecstatic to hear his voice, what he said upset me beyond belief. He and his men had marched up through Iraq from the Saudi border and had so little water that they were forced to drink out of the Euphrates River. They came down with dysentery, and each of them lost between 15 and 25 pounds. When they finally arrived in Baghdad, the temperature was in the triple digits, and they were in such weakened states, and still had so little water, that some of the soldiers’ kidneys were shutting down. My son implored me to do what I could to help them. I immediately contacted your office, in the hopes that you would intervene on behalf of my son and his men. I heard nothing for almost six weeks, and when the response finally arrived, it was a standardized email addressing my concern about the fact that no WMDs had been found. The message seemed clear: the primary focus was on finding the weapons for which very little evidence existed, and our loved ones - whose lives were placed in harm’s way - were an afterthought, at best. Senator, how would you have felt?
My son did return home from that tour and was in the U.S. for 7 months before he was redeployed for the second time. During this deployment, and in one of his darkest moments, he called home and asked, “Mom, where are the American people? Do they know what’s going on over here? Do they even care about us?” Senator, I put that question to you - do you care about our sons, our daughters, our loved ones? If you do, how many more will you let die for a war that you know is based on lies? How many more will you let return home, never to be the same again? How many more families will you let be torn apart before you stand with your fellow elected representatives who are calling for an end to the injustice that is the war in Iraq? Please, not one more.
Thank you for taking the time to hear my voice.
Sincerely,
Anne L. Roesler, EdD, MPH
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