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Re: Supporting the Troops and Not the War

Quote:

Originally posted by VirtuousErudite
This is an article I read today and it is one of the most clear examples of someone supporting the troops and not the war. Discuss among yourselves. :)

CANTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- In her cluttered yellow house overlooking a serene pond, Alice Copeland Brown packs her latest box of goodies for the war front -- Oreo cookies, biscotti, Q-tips, goggles.

Then she taps out an e-mail to her son in Iraq.

"I'm going to be arrested tomorrow," she tells him.

From a tent somewhere in the desert comes the cryptic reply.

"That's nice, Mom," writes Army Maj. David Floyd. "Just keep protesting as long as you keep sending food."

The exchange occurred two weeks ago, but similar lighthearted correspondence flies back and forth between mother and son nearly every day.

Their banter masks many things: His true feelings about his mother's anti-war protests, her deepening dread about what could happen to her son the longer the war drags on.

Floyd, a 44-year-old reservist from Birmingham, Ala., is a surgeon's assistant with the Army's 3rd Medical Command. His family knows only the bare details about his deployment, that he is based in Camp Doha, Qatar, that he flies into the battlefields of Iraq to treat the wounded -- Iraqis as well as Americans.

Brown bursts with pride when she talks of her son's work. He's saving people, not killing them, she says.

But she cannot bear to watch the television images of smoldering buildings and burning oil-fields without wondering if David is near them. She wonders if he is getting any sleep. She worries about chemical weapons.

"Please wear your goggles and your gas mask every time you go out," she chides in an e-mail. "Don't breathe those fumes."

She can't stop thinking about the images of death and suffering he will carry in his head when the war ends.

And so, every day she gathers up her banners and marches to one of the busiest intersections in town, Cobbs Corner, where she brandishes her son's photograph and pleads with anyone who will listen: "My son is in the army in Iraq. Please stop this war and bring him home."

She knows that many who wave and honk see only a mother's pain.

Others see street theater. To attract attention, Brown dresses in the flowing skirts and white bonnet of a Pilgrim. She waves a colonial flag in addition to anti-war banners.

And some just see another protester who would be opposed to any war.

In a sense, Brown is all these things, this tiny 65-year-old woman with her beatific face, who crams in as many protests as possible, between picking one grandson up from high school track practice and cooking dinner for another.

But she is more.

For years, Brown worked as a software designer, writing encryption software for defense contractor Raytheon Corp. and other companies. She is proud of her computer expertise, proud of contributing to her nation's defense system, especially proud of the top-secret security clearance she held.

She is equally proud of her family's military service.

Her father was in the Coast Guard Reserve. In World War II, one uncle fought in the Battle of the Bulge, another at Iwo Jima, a third in the Solomon Islands.

"You couldn't belong to a military family prouder than ours," Brown says.

So it was natural for her son to join the service too -- and for him to thrive. He loved the marksmanship, the camaraderie, the weekends training with his unit.

Neither mother nor son ever expected him to go to war.

Brown has a son serving in the U.S. Army in the Middle East and is very active in the antiwar movement.
Scheduled to retire in April after 20 years, Floyd told his mother he had seen enough misery in Afghanistan to want to get out. Among other missions on his six-month posting in Kabul, he was one of the medics who treated the Canadians killed and wounded by an American bomber in a friendly fire incident.

Upon his return, Floyd said he was ready to settle back home with his wife and two young daughters and resume civilian life as a nurse at the Cooper Green hospital in Birmingham.

But with the call-up for Iraq duty, he was sent to a war zone again.

His latest deployment terrified his mother. And it convinced her that after years of "sideline" protesting for all sorts of causes _ going back to anti-segregation and Vietnam war protests -- it was time for her to get more deeply involved.

"I was a coward," Brown says, "until my son was sent to the front."

And so she threw herself into civil disobedience courses where she learned tips from veteran protesters: Never touch a police officer, hide small items of food in your clothing, write a lawyer's number in permanent ink on your arm.

She joined peace groups, including an Internet one called Military Families Speak Out. She started speaking at rallies, doing local radio interviews. She became a plaintiff in a lawsuit -- since dismissed -- charging that President Bush had illegally declared war without the proper consent of Congress.

But she also participated in town efforts to support the troops, going door-to-door on drives to collect war-bound goodies, and attending a town meeting to graciously accept a small symbolic flag from a veterans association. The flag, red and white with a blue star in the center, was presented to all 35 families in this town of 20,000 who have members in the military. It hangs in her front window near another small flag with the words "Stop the Slaughter."

Last month, when Bush delivered his final 48-hour deadline to Saddam Hussein, Brown decided it was time to prove she had the courage of her convictions.

At a March 19 rally in front of the John F. Kennedy Federal building in Boston, she joined dozens of protesters who blocked the entrance. In her Pilgrim outfit, Brown lay limply on the ground, eyes closed, arms crossed over her chest. It took four officers to carry her to the police van, where, along with 11 other women, she was handcuffed and whisked off to jail to be booked on charges of disorderly conduct.

"Getting arrested," Brown says, "was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life -- and the most exhilarating."

For the first time in her protesting career she had the strange sensation of being in battle herself, of being part of a unified force with a singular mission.

"I felt like a soldier in a campaign," she says. "And I thought, I'm doing what David is doing. I'm fighting a war."

Awaiting trial, she plans to take her lawyer's advice not to get arrested again until it is over.

But she still goes to rallies whenever she can. She still pickets outside recruitment centers. She still stands on Cobbs Corner every day with her flowing skirts and beaming smile, and the banner that says "Bring my son home."

And she still sends daily e-mails to her son, filling him in on her latest exploits, sending him photographs of her arrest.

From a tent in the desert comes his response:

"I'm sharing your picture with everyone. Most are not impressed until I tell them that the cookies are from you."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Copyright 2003 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/04/06/one....ap/index.html you can see the pictures here

"So it was natural for her son to join the service too -- and for him to thrive. He loved the marksmanship, the camaraderie, the weekends training with his unit.

Neither mother nor son ever expected him to go to war. "

Isn't there something wrong with this statement? This isn't summer camp. The military prepares to serve in a war.

I also am not satisfied with her analogy of her mission with that of her son's. They are not both fighting a war. I also don't like how she states that getting arrested was "exhilarating". How can she compare her experience to her son's?

-Rudey
--And where do you get pilgrim costumes??

Rudey, I agree with your previous post. The point of the military is to be prepared for war. Membership is voluntary. If you don't want to potentially fight in a war, don't join the military.

I feel sympathy for the plight of this woman. She is worried about her son whom she loves and wants home. There are thousands of people who have the same feelings about their loved ones.

Neither mother nor son ever expected him to go to war.
I'm having a little problem with this statement.
Do you think the NY City Fire Dept. expected a building to fall on them? What about the police who work in "war zone" neighborhoods? Doctors never expect to be exposed to AIDS by a sharp, but these things all happen-it's part of the risk. If anyone says different, they aren't/weren't looking realistically at the whole picture. Thse situations are very real possibilities

To be in the armed service and NOT understand that war is always a possibility-especially in this political climate-is hard to understand. Perhaps if the statement had read "Both mother and son hoped war would not occur..." I think she is doing the best she can do to cope with a heartbreaking and frightening situation.

The journalist just had an agenda when he/she wrote that...

Note that it's not a quote.. The journalist never interviewed the son.

Take that article with a HUGE grain of salt. The mother's perspective in this case is obviously not enough to paint the entire picture. I really don't buy that statement at all.

Just an example of crap journalism.

http://www.coxandforkum.com/archives...mouflage-X.gif

In a CNN report that Oakland antiwar protest gets ugly, the leftists' true anti-American-military nature is revealed: "Direct Action to Stop the War organized the protest against American President Lines, saying the company ships arms and supplies for the U.S. military and is profiting from the war on Iraq." And what exactly do they think would happen to our troops without supplies and arms?

In December, The Ayn Rand Institute's Alex Epstein wrote about these Peacenik Warmongers: "There is an increasingly vocal movement that seeks to engage America in ever longer, wider, and more costly wars — leading to thousands and perhaps millions of unnecessary deaths. This movement calls itself the 'anti-war' movement."

via Cox & Forkum.

Okay, I think the point of that one sentence was completely missed.

No one expects to go to war. Everyone who enters the armed services know it's a risk, but it's not as if you expect to be called into war tomorrow. In the case of this man, he's been in the Army for 20 years; a lot of the kids who are going in now don't have a war in their recent memory, nor do they know people who have been personally touched by war. The only reason Gulf War I wasn't a complete blur for me is because of where I lived.

There is a difference between knowing the risks involved in a decision and expecting a certain outcome. That's as simplistic as saying, "I drive, therefore I expect to be in an accident." No. You understand the risks involved in driving, that an accident can happen.

How does the anti-war movement lead to longer wars? Explain that pearl of wisdom from The Ayn Rand Institute. Don't get me wrong, The Fountainhead was the reason I decided to be an architect, but that think-tank is very reactionary.

hmmm quite quiet in here.

It took some time to confirm this yesterday, but on March 6th, just a bit over one month ago, anti-war activist and Saddam appeaser Jeanane Garafalo made an appearance on The O’Reilly Factor. O’Reilly took the opportunity to present a “what if” situation to Garafalo.

O'Reilly: If you are wrong . . . and if the United States--and they will, this is going to happen--goes in, liberates Iraq [with] people in the street, American flags, hugging our soldiers . . . you gonna apologize to George W. Bush?

Garafalo: I would be so willing to say, "I'm sorry." I hope to God that I can be made a buffoon of, that people will say, "You were wrong. You were a fatalist." And I will go to the White House on my knees on cut glass and say, "Hey, you and Thomas Friedman [sic] were right. . . . I shouldn't have doubted you" . . .

O'Reilly: Nobody will call you a buffoon because I will protect you.

Garafalo: Thank you, sir.

One suggestion, Janeane. Make it a pay-per-view event. Raise money for your favorite charity. Janeane Garafalo walking on knees through broken glass. $29.99 tonight on Showtime!

via Neal Boortz

There was a rally at the World Trade Center today in support of the troops. I just saw my neighbor on the news talking about his late son who was murdered on Sept. 11th while working for the FDNY. His daughter is now in the Army. I know that people say that there isn't a correlation between 9/11 and the war in Iraq, but I consider this a part of the war on terrorism. I feel so sad. He was a nice young man who should still be here.

I thought this said anti war prostitutes. Hahaha. I'll bang you if you burn a flag LOL

Re: Anti-War Protesters....

BUMP

Quote:

Originally posted by ZZ-kai-
................I leave you Anti-War protesters with this: If you are so anti-war, move your ass to Iraq for a month and tell me how much you like living under Saddam's regime. Were the rape rooms not enough? Were the beatings and murders not enough? How about the mutilations to the Iraqi Olympians who did not perform well enough? Using chemical weapons to murder your own people by the thousands, is that enough? Killing innocent women and children, is that enough?

Then come back to the good ole U.S. of A., and protest another war. I dare ya.

I am Pro- American [/B]