A Very Good Meeting

The kids are all sleeping, my friend (the wife) had to lay down with her 3 year old to sleep, leading to HER falling asleep, leaving my husband to finally have some man to man talk with his best friend… I slipped away to blog. It only seemed right.

I think I have said in the past I am in the DAR. I have many ancestors who contributed in some way in the Revolutionary War. We do a lot of volunteer work for the Veterans and for children. Today we had a meeting and as busy as I was with soccer games and guests, I knew I couldn’t miss it as we had an Army Sgt. First Class coming to speak to us… one who had served in both Desert Storm and this current war we are fighting now.

I’m going to tell you about some of what he said, but first, let me tell you as he spoke, it only hammered home that I voted against the right guy. National Defense is it for me folks, and listening to a man who has fought for his country twice, it only set to solidify why I voted the way I did… although I have NEVER doubted my vote.

This gentleman who spoke to us compared the two wars… how they have been regarded in country as well as with the American public. He said the first war they were greeted warmly by the Saudis and were treated like royalty by the Kuwaitis when they were finally liberated. With the second war, as we know, the Saudis are cold and want nothing to do with us… but the Kuwaitis… they are still enormously appreciative. He said as they drove through Kuwait people would chant at them, “Bush Good! Bush Good!” As they approached the border towns inside Iraq, there was much support. Young children would run up yelling, “Hey, GI!” and they would throw the kids candy and food. But as they approached the center of Iraq, people did not greet them anymore. The citizens were pretty solidly divided and he said they soon found out that the extremists had a stranglehold and those who supported America could not speak.

What was distressful to me, although I knew it… I read the military blogs, I hear things, is that although they were hugely supported by the American public with the first war, this time around, the feeling is much different. He said the soldiers know it and they feel it. This bothers me as I know it bothers anyone who reads my blog… so I will not dwell.

Someone asked him about equipment and if he felt they were adequately equipped for this war. His response was something like this, “There is not a military in this world better equipped than the American military. Are there things we want to make things better? Sure. Did things get to us slower in the beginning before pipelines were established… slower than we wanted? Sure. But things happen and our military is by far the most advanced and well equipped in the world. When you fight next to a guy from another country (he was referring to the Saudis in the 1st war) and they’re carrying nothing but an Ak-47 and wearing a piece of tin on their head, you realize how much you have.”

He spoke of it being 152 degrees one day, but feeling fortunate that it got down to 105 at night. And he spoke of Iraqi children running around barefoot when he said he KNEW the pavement had to be 120 degrees… at least. We heard about the bugs and being this guy is a Texan, and we all know how everything is BIGGER and better in Texas, when he said he’d never in his life seen anything like the bugs he saw in Iraq, we definitely believed him!

Someone asked if we would be there for awhile and how things were going and he said his personal opinion was that we would be there for a long while and just to keep the faith... and that things are bad there now... but things are always bad before they get really good. He said there are still people there that believe that Saddam will actually come back to power, some how, and that when Saddam is taken care of once and for all, he said he personally feels things will change and he hopes for the better.

We gave him many standing ovations. We all had to speak to him at the end... all of us wanted to touch him and hug him... all of us thanked him. It was a wonderful talk. It made me feel good. I felt good about my vote. It made me hopeful.