After all the emails, videos and letters that I and many other bloggers have shown with our soldiers harsh words about time lines and the Democrats helping the enemies with trying to establish a surrender date for America's defeat, Pelosi, completely ignoring all of the above says this:
Good afternoon. The Congressional leadership just had a positive meeting with President Bush, where he expressed his willingness to work together, in good faith, and take the right approach to come together to find our common ground."Yesterday, the Congress sent a bill to the President, which we believe honored the sacrifices of our men and women in uniform. It supported our troops, it honored the sacrifices of our veterans, and it held the Iraqis accountable.
"The President chose to veto the bill. We made our position clear. He made his position clear. Now it is time for us to try to work together, to come together.
"But make no mistake: Democrats are committed to ending this war. And we hope to do so in unison with the President of the United States."
So, ignoring our soldiers letters, is actually HONORING and SUPPORTING them.
Be my voice. I want this message heard. It is mine and my platoon’s to the country. A man I know lost his legs the other night. He is in another company in our batallion. I can no longer be silent after watching the sacrifices made by Iraqis and Americans everyday.Send it to a congressman if you have to. Send it to FOX news if you have to. Let this message be heard please…
My fellow Americans, I have a task for those with the courage and fortitude to take it. I have a message that needs not fall on deaf ears. A vision the blind need to see. I am not a political man nor one with great wisdom. I am just a soldier who finds himself helping rebuild a country that he helped liberate a couple years ago.
I have watched on television how the American public questions why their mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters are fighting and dying in a country 9000 miles away from their own soil. Take the word of a soldier, for that is all I am, that our cause is a noble one. The reason we are here is one worth fighting for. A cause that has been the most costly and sought after cause in our small span of existence on our little planet. Bought in blood and paid for by those brave enough to give the ultimate sacrifice to obtain it. A right that is given to every man, woman, and child I believe by God. I am talking of freedom.
Freedom. One word but yet countless words could never capture it’s true meaning or power. “For those who have fought for it, freedom has a taste the protected will never know.” I read that once and it couldn’t be more true. It’s not the average American’s fault that he or she is “blind and deaf” to the taste of freedom. Most American’s are born into their God given right so it is all they ever know. I was once one of them. I would even dare to say that it isn’t surprising that they take for granted what they have had all their life. My experiences in the military however opened my eyes to the truth.
Ironically you will find the biggest outcries of opposition to our cause from those who have had no military experience and haven’t had to fight for freedom. I challenge all of those who are daring enough to question such a noble cause to come here for just a month and see it first hand. I have a feeling that many voices would be silenced.
I watched Cindy Sheehan sit on the President’s lawn and say that America isn’t worth dying for. Later she corrected herself and said Iraq isn’t worth dying for. She badmouthed all that her son had fought and died for. I bet he is rolling over in his grave.
Ladies and gentleman I ask you this. What if you lived in a country that wasn’t free? What if someone told you when you could have heat, electricity, and water? What if you had no sewage systems so human waste flowed into the streets? What if someone would kill you for bad-mouthing your government? What if you weren’t allowed to watch TV, connect to the internet, or have cell phones unless under extreme censorship? What if you couldn’t put shoes on your child’s feet?
You need not to have a great understanding of the world but rather common sense to realize that it is our duty as HUMAN BEINGS to free the oppressed. If you lived that way would you not want someone to help you????
The Iraqi’s pour into the streets to wave at us and when we liberated the cities during the war they gathered in the thousands to cheer, hug and kiss us. It was what the soldier’s in WW2 experienced, yet no one questioned their cause!! Saddam was no better than Hitler! He tortured and killed thousands of innocent people. We are heroes over here, yet American’s badmouth our President for having us here.
Every police station here has a dozen or more memorials for officers that were murdered trying to ensure that their people live free. These are husbands, fathers, and sons killed every day. What if it were your country? What would your choice be? Everything we fight for is worth the blood that may be shed. The media never reports the true HEROISM I witness everyday in the Iraqi’s. Yes there are bad one’s here, but I assure you they are a minuscule percent. Yet they are a number big enough to cause worry in this country’s future.
I have watched brave souls give their all and lose thier lives and limbs for this cause. I will no longer stand silent and let the “deaf and blind” be the only voice shouting. Stonewall Jackson once said, “All that I have, all that I am is at the service of the country.” For these brave souls who gave the ultimate sacrifice, including your son Cindy Sheehan, I will shout till I can no longer. These men and women are heroes. Their spirit lives on in their military and they will never be forgotten. They did not die in vain but rather for a cause that is larger than all of us.
My fellow countrymen and women, we are not overseas for our country alone but also another. We are here to spread democracy and freedom to those who KNOW the true taste of it because they fight for it everyday. You can see the desire in their eyes and I am honored to fight alongside them as an Infantryman in the 101st Airborne.
Freedom is not free, but yet it is everyone’s right to have. Ironic isn’t it? That is why we are here. Though you will always have the skeptics, I know that most of our military will agree with this message. Please, at the request of this soldier spread this message to all you know. We are in Operation Iraqi Freedom and that is our goal. It is a cause that I and thousands of others stand ready to pay the ultimate sacrifice for because, Cindy Sheehan, freedom is worth dying for, no matter what country it is! And after the world is free only then can we hope to have peace.
SGT Walter J. Rausch and 1st Platoon
101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)
What alternate reality is Pelosi living in and who the hell does she think she is kidding claiming she is honoring our soldiers and their sacrifices????
Guess she missed the letter above and perhaps she missed these also.
RedState brings us interviews with the troops in Iraq.“There's not a single one of my soldiers who doesn’t look at the neighborhood we’re in, look at the children there, and not want to do whatever they can to give these kids as bright a future as possible. We want to finish this job, and we know we can do it.
I am going to show one more teaser from the RedState interviews with multiple soldiers, then if you want to see the rest, you have to go read it all yourself.“The sense I get when talking to the other soldiers,” said a public affairs soldier, “is that the worst thing possible would be to give a date when we’re leaving, period. We all want to win, and to accomplish our mission, especially since we’ve put so much into doing it so far. To just up and leave would be terrible.” I asked what effect such statements as Harry Reid’s “the war is lost,” and Nancy Pelosi’s “the war on terror is not in Iraq” have on the troops’ morale and opinions of their mission, and also pointed out the relevance of John Kerry’s 1971 statement to Congress that nobody wants to be “the last man to die for a lost cause,” and asked how that – and the fact that Congress had just passed resolutions mandating troop pullouts in five months – and asked about that affect, as well. The response was, “It’s terrible. I mean, I understand political posturing and all that but it really is terrible. If the war is lost and we need to go home, then why do we need to stay here five more months, when I could die or my friends could die before we go home? The war is either over or it isn’t; this just doesn’t make sense.” The Specialist continued, “What we want is to keep helping the people here. The people at home who say these things, they don’t understand that these are people who have to live here after we leave, whatever the situation is. These people and the things that happen here aren’t real to them, and they can’t understand unless they’ve been here and seen it.”
At least our soldiers have the heart to care about the people they are trying to help, our soldiers have the humanity to understand the ramifications of withdrawal. They are not just there because they were ordered there, many of these men and women enlisted and re-enlisted knowing they would be going to Iraq and they did so for one reason.
Maybe she also missed this, an email sent to me:
Spree-I wanted to leave a comment at your blog but the filtering software on my ISP is getting in the way. I've been in Iraq for over a year now, and the difference here in Anbar is amazing. Sen Reid is putting his own political career over my safety and the safety of my men who go outside the wire most every day. Thanks to folks like you back at home, we have hope that we can keep Congress off our backs long enough to get the job done right, and then we can go home with honor. Great blog, keep it up!SSG Dave ThulMN National GuardAl Asad, IraqAppeal For Courage Committee
Appeal for Courage.
Maybe Pelosi also missed this from a Blue Star Mother:
Starting with Beth from Blue Star Chronicles, who, as she puts it, has a son in the "bowels of Baghdad."
It starts with this:
The argument regarding funding for the war on Capital Hill is frustrating for those of us with children serving in the bowels of Baghdad.
Further excerpts show this:
Nancy Pelosi declares that it’s sad that President Bush thinks that al-Qaeda is in Iraq. Even while she makes these sneering statements our Soldiers, our sons and our daughters, are fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq. High level Iraqi operatives have been captured in Iraq and the Congressmen and news media either ignore it or spend their time discussing whether or not our Troops, our sons and our daughters, will mistreat them while they are being held for questioning.
The Troops, our sons and our daughters, are having their time down range extended. In many cases indefinitely. They are having to do repeated rotations. It’s a volunteer Army, that’s their job. But doesn’t it just grate on you to hear the criticism of every move they make? Doesn’t it just make your head explode to know that news media and progressives are just waiting for one to slip up, in the fog of war, and make a mistake so they can slander the American Military for the world to hear? Don’t you want to scream at those Congressmen and tell them to quit using our sons and our daughters for their own political gain?
In yet another excerpt she says:
There is a disconnect between the people in this country and our Soldiers fighting this war. We have little to no real help from other countries. Our Soldiers are in the dangerous areas. Our Soldiers are carrying the heaviest part of the load for the Western world.
Our country forgot about 9/11. Everyone has moved on. Everyone except our enemy who still declares their intention to destroy us and the American Soldier who stands alone between them and us.
Please read her whole piece and take a look at the picture she has up.
Maybe Pelosi also missed this touching letter.
Maybe Pelosi also managed to miss this:
Just WatchAmerican Soldier says,
I don’t understand the stance that the populace has taken towards
our military. I feel as if I went off and did the wrong thing at times.
Why can’t people see that we fight for a greater cause? We sacrifice so
you can have freedoms. We don’t die and get maimed because we have done
something wrong or our society has accepted something wrong. We fight
the global war on terror. You all remember 9/12/01. You know what it
felt like to lose people or feel helpless.The days after 9/11 I went to ground zero and I helped savage what I
could. I helped in the various rescue missions. I did what I could. I
felt helpless like everyone else. People cried out towards me to help
them. I could do nothing then but I swore I would do what I could in
the days to follow.It wasn’t more than a year later that I volunteered to enter the
service again and soon after be deployed to fight for my country. I did
what I did to help those who asked me those long days after 9/11. I
swore it to them and I swore to myself that I would do what I needed to
do.Now, 6 years later I feel like the public is turning their back on
me. Why do I feel this way? I know there is a community who will
support me always but I reach out to those who oppose me. Why do you
try to hurt me? Why do you try and take from my fellow brother who is
forward and outside the wire right now?I came so close to dying that I feel as if I’ve been given a second
chance at life. I look back and I clearly remember how close it came. I
could have been one of the many grave scenes in the film above. However
I am not. I am alive and breathe life in and exhale my compassion. You
wish I would just go away but I won’t. I am a warrior and I may die an
old man who wore his Iraq Veteran hat with my many medals on it. Just
like the generation before me.Don’t hate me with such vile hatred. The bad man in the middle night
will not hurt you because I have taken his life before he could reach
you….remember that!
This is being cross posted from The American Ranger, with permission, of course.
I recently received multiple emails of an item titled “I’m Tired”. It was signed by Joe Repya, Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army, 101st Airborne Division.
Many may remember SFC Chuck Grist from my interview with him, that can be found here.
Now for the cross post:
Some of those who forwarded the email questioned, as we all have a tendency to do, whether or not there really was a “Joe Repya”. Being on active duty, I managed to locate him and he sent me the following response regarding the “I’m Tired” letter. He confirmed that it was indeed his and that he had written it all the way back in 2005.
After his email response to me, read his letter “I’m Tired” and I am sure you will be as impressed as I was:
“Chuck,
I wrote the letter to a friend in November, 2005, upon my return from Baghdad where I served with the Multi National Corps – Iraq (18th Airborne Corps) C-3 Headquarters. I didn’t realize he was going to post it on the internet until my email filled up about a week later. I was a voluntary retiree recall; 12,000 retirees volunteered and only 300 of us were returned to duty. I returned to active duty from 2004 – 2006 after retiring in 1998.
I served as a combat infantry(2/506 Infantry, 101st Airborne Division) and air cav platoon leader in Vietnam (2/17 Cav, 101st Airborne Division 1970-71) and as a combat pilot in Desert Storm (Aviation Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, 1990-91).
After my surgery in February, 2006, I never recuperated enough to get back to Iraq. Having turned 60 in March, 2006, my wife convinced me to ‘re-retire’.
I’m very proud of the job our young people have and are doing and I’m convinced that at the end of this century, their generation will be named this century’s ‘Greatest Generation’. Please stay safe and keep up the fight!
Joseph Repya
Lieutenant Colonel, (Retired)"
"I'm Tired"
Two weeks ago, as I was starting my sixth month of duty in Iraq, I was forced to return to the USA for surgery for an injury I sustained prior to my deployment. With luck, I'll return to Iraq to finish my tour.
I left Baghdad and a war that has every indication that we are winning, to return to a demoralized country much like the one I returned to in 1971 after my tour in Vietnam. Maybe it's because I'll turn 60 years old in just four months, but I'm tired:
I'm tired of spineless politicians, both Democrat and Republican who lack the courage, fortitude, and character to see these difficult tasks through.
I'm tired of the hypocrisy of politicians who want to rewrite history when the going gets tough.
I'm tired of the disingenuous clamor from those that claim they 'Support the Troops' by wanting them to 'Cut and Run' before victory is achieved.
I'm tired of a mainstream media that can only focus on car bombs and casualty reports because they are too afraid to leave the safety of their hotels to report on the courage and success our brave men and women are having on the battlefield.
I'm tired that so many Americans think you can rebuild a dictatorship into a democracy over night.
I'm tired that so many ignore the bravery of the Iraqi people to go to the voting booth and freely elect a Constitution and soon a permanent Parliament.
I'm tired of the so called 'Elite Left' that prolongs this war by giving aid and comfort to our enemy, just as they did during the Vietnam War.
I'm tired of antiwar protesters showing up at the funerals of our fallen soldiers. A family who's loved ones gave their life in a just and noble cause, only to be cruelly tormented on the funeral day by cowardly protesters is beyond shameful.
I'm tired that my generation, the Baby Boom -- Vietnam generation, who have such a weak backbone that they can't stomach seeing the difficult tasks through to victory.
I'm tired that some are more concerned about the treatment of captives than they are the slaughter and beheading of our citizens and allies.
I'm tired that when we find mass graves it is seldom reported by the press, but mistreat a prisoner and it is front page news.
Mostly, I'm tired that the people of this great nation didn't learn from history that there is no substitute for Victory.
Sincerely,
Joe Repya,
Lieutenant Colonel, U. S. Army
101st Airborne Division
I could keep going all day long with the words of our soldiers belying the basic premise that Pelosi is or ever has "honored"or "supported"our soldiers.
She hasn't just missed these letters, she has completely ignored them and then wants to claim she honors our troops? Claim that she supports our troops?
What freaking world is SHE living in where she thinks stabbing our soldiers in the back, completely ignoring their words as well as ignoring their families words is honoring or supporting either?
Have no doubt I will be emailing her these letters with the dozens and dozens more that she has ignored.
Once again, Nancy Pelosi manages to lie directly to the worlds face and expects anyone to take her seriously?
She is an embarrassment as a women, an embarrassment as an American and, frankly, an embarrassment as a human being.
.