To Congressman Meehan

Congressman Meehan,

As I write this letter my husband has just been taken to surgery to repair damage done to  his shoulder largley due to wearing body armor more than 15 hours a day, seven days a week for over 10 months while deployed to Iraq with the Massachussets Army National Guard.  As I watched him drift off to sleep, wires attached and the ever preseant mortar-twitch setting in, I thanked God  for what we have been spared.  As a result of his service to this country in a combat zone in he has only lost hearing in one ear, experiences ongoing pain from a broken foot and injured knee, pain in both feet from wearing combat boots 18 hours a day in 130+ temperatures and endures constant all over body ache.  He is here, alive, has all his digits and limbs and both eyes.  He bears no physical scars. I wonder about those who also have loved ones who are serving or have served in Iraq, those who will never see their soldier again and will always wonder how and why and imagine again and again the horrific circimstances of their loved one's death.  I think of a world without these people and what they would have contibuted to their communities and nation.

I think of the injured and maimed, their pain, their fear as they face the rest of their lives so altered, and of their loved ones who wait so desperately to hear that it will all be okay but know that it won't. Ever.  Not for their loved one, not for themselves, their children or their communities.

I looked at my husband - another twitch - and wished to God there was a surgery that could repair this lovely, loving man's mind, heart, soul.  I wonder what will be left of him should he be called up to deploy again. 

Congressman, there is no cure for what this war has wrought upon this nation of ours and upon the people of Iraq,  I hope there truly is a God - so much of what I have always believed in has been stripped away - but I hope that there at least IS a God, because  without a God there is no forgiveness for any of us for allowing this war to happen, allowing our leaders freehand to commit horrific crimes against so many when we have the power to stop them. 

Our military is made up of some of america's finest citizens who have committed their lives to protect the goodness of this nation, yet they have been used for the immoral and unethical schemes of an incompetent administration.

I am unable to travel to Washington this week with the thousands of other military families who are carrying this messsage.  Please look at them and try to count them.  And then multiply each one by several others, because for each one there, there are many more who would like to be.  This is your nation, the people who elect you to be their voice and their vote. 

*Stop President Bush and his administration from continuing and escalating this war. 
*Do not allow them to feed more lives into the bottomless pit that Bush refers to as 'Victory." 
*Do not vote to support continued and increased funding for this invasion and occupation.

When the president asks for increased troops and funding he is asking for death warrants on american citizens and the money to carry these sentences out.

When he tells us that without increased funding our troops are in danger he is telling us that he is holding them hostage and requiring an open ended ransom.

Please, help us.

Anne Sapp
Military Familieas Speak Out
Iraq Veterans Against the War