Press Democrat Prints UUP Member Celeste Durrum's Letter to the Editor

Celeste's letter was published on March 5 in tje Press Democrat's Letters to the Editor.

Subject: Supporting Our Troops

Dear Editor:

I believe there is an emergency need to support our young men and women who are fighting to fulfill the mission put forth by our president.

The most fundamental support needed is to bring them home alive and provide them with the intensive services needed to restore physical and mental health so they can go forth to become parents, workers, and productive citizens of our great country.

Sending these young people into the Middle East to secure an oil-rich country for the benefit of the entwined Bush government and U. S.-controlled oil corporations has recklessly left them wounded, maimed, mentally damaged, and dead.

This is the antithesis of support and a failing of tragic magnitude by our president and government.

Lack of support, in fact, has become active anti-support through ignoring and removal of customary military rules and programs that keep our soldiers fit, effective fighters likely to survive.

Some examples of anti-support include: the need for families themselves to purchase protective gear for their sons and daughters; soldiers being re-deployed without usual intervals for recovery and re-training; altered military rules so troops are re-deployed three times to Iraq; broken-up and partial units sent lacking readiness or equipment; National Guard units, untrained for combat in Iraq, sent to fight; and the decimation of our National Guard to the point it is not ready for natural disasters here (Hurricane Katrina a case in point).

This is the short list.

I pray the American people will press their representatives in Congress to provide real support to our troops, not deceitful rhetoric to promote the policies of anti-support.

Sincerely,

Celeste Durrum
Petaluma