Tomorrow, Tuesday, some of us in of Gold Star Families Speak Out will go to Washington to speak to our Senators and plead with them to stop funding this disastrous, immoral needless war in Iraq. After all these painful years, after the loss of 3633 American soldiers, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, after the maiming, burning and slow torture of the souls of the survivors, after the leveling of cities, schools and cemeteries, after the strengthening of numbers of those who say that are foes of America- it seems that it should not be necessary to tell our Senators that their voice and vote should be used to end this war by refusing to pay for it.
We have gone to the Senate and Congress offices many times before, we have sat across from grim aides and sympathetic representatives, we have been comforted and pandered to, insulted and embraced, vilified and honored. In October of 2004 few representatives would speak to us, Virginia’s Senator Warner pushed us off to an aid who could not find a room in the entire Senate building to accommodate five families of the fallen and 10 active duty families. By 2005 more House members were seeing us, and the dear and honorable Representative Walter Jones, NC, placed the pictures of the fallen throughout the halls. In the summer of 06 members of Military Families Speak Out spent six weeks on the side walk in front of the House buildings with pictures, and boots to symbolize the soldiers who have died in Iraq. In January of 07 we visited many representatives who welcomed us and wrung their hands, and promised to make the war stop.
Now, July 24 2007, some of the members of Gold Star Families Speak Out, including the families of Sgt. Neal Santoriello, Spc. Robert Hall, Sgt Michael Cleary, Sgt Alex Carbonaro, Lt Seth Dvoirn and my family who daily weeps for our Sgt Sherwood Baker will go to Washington uninvited to meet with Senators Casey, Lautenberg, Menedez and Martinez. We will show these men our pictures of our lost ones, we will tell them what good men they were, how their wives and children are bereft, how their parents feel broken and their brothers and sisters can not come to peace with the loss that did not have to happen.
We will look them in their concerned faces and ask them what would it take to have the US Senate stop funding this disaster that is the war in Iraq? What else can possibly be said, what else can possibly be revealed, to have this body of people elected to do the will of the Country bring a final end plan to the nightmare of this war.
At the end of the day, we will make our way to Arlington, to visit the quiet graves of some of our sons, we will pray over them and whisper our love to them, and the words we speak will be picked up by the winds- but will they ever really enter the hearts of those who can and must end this war?