Tag: military families

For Marines serving in Afghanistan, mail call can be a little bit like Christmas in July. A package from home can supply everything from basic needs to small luxuries.

snip

At a Piggly Wiggly grocery store in North Carolina, customers have been donating goods for Marines deployed with the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment out of nearby Camp Lejeune.

Assistant Manager Rosa Hamilton says some of the items catch shoppers off guard. “They were like, ‘Clothes pins, huh? I never would have thought about that.’ And we’re like, ‘Well, they don’t have anywhere to hang their clothes,’ ” she says………..Rest Here

Or bring up the NPR Player with this link amd listen to the report

I went over to ABC News to see if they had posted a video report that I caught last night, never got to that as this is what I found, and will be airing this morning on GMA.

Exclusive: ‘It Hurts,’ Says First Lady of Military Families on Food Stamps

First lady Michelle Obama wants military families to know they have a friend in the White House, she told “Good Morning America’s” Robin Roberts in an exclusive interview today at Fort Bragg, N.C. — her first network television interview since her husband took office.

“It hurts. It hurts,” the first lady said of hearing about military families on food stamps. “These are people who are willing to send their loved ones off to, perhaps, give their lives — the ultimate sacrifice. But yet, they’re living back at home on food stamps. It’s not right, and it’s not where we should be as a nation.”

I’ve come alot closer to my full support of Obama, I just don’t ever make total decisions when elections are months away, I also don’t just look at the single person trying to give their resume, I look at how they present themselves, smear and slam are big no no’s, and I look at who they bring close to them in their campaigns and try and figure out, if they win, who will they surround themselves with while in office ( and I hit the nail on the head, which I do for a living, as to the bush crowd, not exactly reading the future but seeing alot of what was to come do so! ), especially as to Federal Representation and the Presidential Office, more towards my Representation on who I would Hire.

Last night, on the PBS Newshour, they had an appropriate July 4th interview, especially in these times of two occupations:

Another good idea undoubtedly doomed to fail, but worth the effort to try:

Military Families Speak Out is challenging U.S. Senators — starting with two named Obama and Clinton — to filibuster and stop President Bush’s request for more money for the Iraq war and occupation, another $102-billion.

Democrats aren’t even talking about saying no.

The Democrats’ plan appears to be to load up the bill with more domestic spending, rather than trying to stop the war spending. They want to add money for everything from storm-damaged national parks to local law enforcement grants to trying to use nuclear fusion to produce energy, CQ reports.

Instead of trying to stop the war, they’ve written Bush a letter, politely suggesting that he should change his strategy and plans.  Right. That’ll be happening any day now, no doubt.

Military Families Speak Out has a simple idea:  Stop the war by refusing to fund it.  That, you may recall, is how we finally got out of Vietnam.

They start by quoting Obama and Clinton, then ask them a simple question:

“Let me be clear: there is no military solution in Iraq, and there never was. The best way to protect our security and to pressure Iraq’s leaders to resolve their civil war is to immediately begin to remove our combat troops. Not in six months or one year – now.” — Sen. Barack Obama, September 12, 2007

“Our message to the president is clear. It is time to begin ending this war — not next year, not next month — but today.” — Sen. Hillary Clinton, July 10, 2007

On the campaign trail, Senator Obama and Senator Clinton both say that the war in Iraq needs to end. Military Families Speak Out has one question for them: what are they doing now as sitting United States Senators, to bring our loved ones home from Iraq?

[cross-posted from EENR blog]

“I believe in a sacred contract between our country and America’s veterans and military families. We must stand by those who stand by us. When our service men and women sacrifice so much to defend our freedom and secure peace around the world, we have a moral obligation to take care of them and their families.” – John Edwards

Yes, I know, John Edwards is not in the race for president any longer. But that does not diminish the power of his efforts to ensure that we treat our military with the respect they deserve — the active military and their families and the veterans.

Before dawn every Sunday morning, at the foot of the Santa Monica Pier, volunteers set up crosses in memory of American service members killed in Iraq.

The Video was produced for the New York Times and can be also seen At Their Site

Something to think about this Saturday morning

promoted by ek hornbek

There’s a piece being written on in a number of blogs about a poll that indicates Bush has little support among military families, who probably are not going to vote for a Republican president next year.  It’s surprising to a lot of people who think of the military as an undifferentiated mass that gets told what to do (which is true) and how to think (they get told, but most eventually believe their experience instead).  Their families get lumped in there, too.

Those families used to vote the way their military members did, and military members used to uniformly (sorry) support “conservative” candidates.  I grew up in a military family, right after World War II.  I thought what I was told to think, that conservatism equaled patriotism, until I had enough education and work experience to know differently.  The votes of these families are going to reflect painful and terribly unjust personal experiences.

Any other subject and I would be able to write an essay about defeating a Republican into a masterpiece of clever snark.  This subject encompasses too much pain, too much suffering, and too much destruction.  The magnitude of what has happened to these families, the stories that underly the result of that poll, are just too awful.  I won’t  be able to touch it here, but I offer links that can get readers close, and I defer to them for a description of the ordeals that military families endure.