Diatribune - Over At 'Vet Voice' - Comments

Vets Mom - More than Flowers

jimstaro — Sat, 10 May 2008 08:08:10 -0600

Vets Mom - More than Flowers and Cards

Vet's Mom Shows that Mother's Day is About More than Flowers and Cards

This year American consumers are expected to spend an average of $138.63 each on flowers, cards and gifts for Mother’s Day, for a grand total of $15.8 billion.

That’s a whole lotta hydrangeas.

One of those is Oklahoma’s 2006 Mother of the Year, Cynde Collins-Clark, about whom I’ve written previously in connection with her son, Joe, an Iraq War veteran who returned from his tour of duty in 2004 with severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Cards and flowers are nice, but $15.8 billion would go a long way toward helping veterans and their families. In lieu of flowers, perhaps a donation to a veterans group would be a more fitting bouquet to honor all the mothers who have given their most precious gift to the rest of us.

A Military Mom Writes to a

jimstaro — Sat, 10 May 2008 05:09:37 -0600

A Military Mom Writes to a Chicken Hawk

A 'Gold Star Mom', for 'Mothers Day'

Dear Speaker Pelosi,

I write to you this Mother's Day as the mother of Lt. Ken Ballard, who was killed in Najaf, Iraq four years ago, fighting in a war that you have criticized but continue to fund.
I hope that this Mother's Day you are lucky enough to be surrounded by your children and grandchildren, to share thanks and hugs. But I also hope that you will think about the thousands of mothers of U.S. troops who will never see their children again -- and the tens of thousands of mothers of troops now serving in Iraq who live in fear every day of the phone call or the knock on the door telling them their child has been injured or killed.

Over At 'Vet Voice'

jimstaro — Sat, 10 May 2008 04:53:47 -0600

Author Colby Buzzell Being Sent Back to Iraq

Colby Buzzell, author of My War: Killing Time in Iraq one of the best Iraq memoirs out there--has been called up from the IRR and will be returning to Iraq. For reasons that I've specified in the past, this is utter horseshit. Our country is in sad shape when cowards like Matthew Continetti and Jason Mattera are allowed to refuse to serve--instead choosing to cheer from the bench--while people like Colby Buzzell are forced to go involuntarily again and again.
This is nothing less than a backdoor draft. And it's wrong. We need to either have a draft or not have a draft. But one way or the other, these IRR mobilizations need to stop.
Here's part of Buzzell's take on his own situation (though you should go read the whole thing in the San Francisco Chronicle:
SNIP