On the Third Anniversary

"More fighting and sacrifice will be required to achieve this victory, and for some, the temptation to retreat and abandon our commitments is strong." --George Bush, Radio Address, March 18, 2006

On March 19, 2003, George Bush "shocked and awed" the world by his premature, if not wholly unnecessary, invasion of Iraq. I can remember that night when he came on to tell us that he had begun his war crimes against Iraq in earnest. I was sitting on my couch sobbing for the innocent people of Iraq and for our children who had been put in harm's way by their careless commander-in-chief.

I was also terrified on a personal and primal level for my son, Casey. As a mother, that terror came from a deep and, up to then, unreachable and unknown place in my soul. I hoped that the predictions of swift and easy victory by the various neocon liars would be true, but I knew in my heart that such a "cake walk" would not be possible.

When the 4th Infantry Division from Ft. Hood captured Saddam in December of 2003, I was hoping against hope that our troops would be coming home soon, since they got the person who took Osama's place as Bush's "most wanted." Again, I selfishly prayed that Casey would not have to go over to the mess for his scheduled deployment in March of 2004.

Many people in Bush's circle told us that the paths of our troops would be strewn with flower petals instead of improvised explosive devises and that chocolates, not bullets, would be tossed at them. No amount of praying, hoping, or kidding myself stopped the invasion from happening or brought a swift conclusion to the war. Right around the first anniversary of the invasion, Casey and the 1st Cavalry left for Iraq. After Casey had been there for five days, he and seven other soldiers were killed on April 4, 2004, in an ambush in Sadr City by the Mahdi forces loyal to Moqtada al Sadr.

Shortly after Casey was killed, power was transferred from Jay Bremer to a puppet government, and Bremer skulked out of Iraq in the middle of the night with $8.8 billion missing from the Coalition Provisional Authority. Bremer came home to a Presidential Medal of Freedom, and Casey came home in a cardboard box. We picked him up at SFO's United Airlines loading dock the day before Easter that year. Casey was awarded medals that were pinned on the uniform that covered his lifeless chest.

George Bush said today that the war was going to take more fighting and more sacrifice. I want to know who is fighting. I want to know if the members of the executive and legislative branches that are so willing to leave our troops in the middle of sectarian violence and a militarily undefeatable resistance are willing to send their children to the desert to take the place of the at least 72 percent of the soldiers who want to come home. Are they willing to go over there themselves to fight? George Bush didn't finish his commitment to the country when he went AWOL from the Alabama National Guard; why hasn't he been called back up to go and fight and die in his own "noble cause"? I have heard of other men and women his age who have been called back up. This is not our children's fight. As in all war, the only people who benefit are the war profiteers.

I would also like to know who is making sacrifices in this country besides the soldiers and their families. Where are the shared sacrifices of the past? There was a USA Today poll recently which said that at least 50 percent of our population has "cried" because of the war and so many more have put magnets on their cars. I wonder how many of our citizens wake up everyday with broken hearts and holes in their lives that can never be filled. I wonder how many wake up missing arms and legs, or both? I wonder how many can't sleep because they are afraid of the nightmares that haunt even their waking hours.