Military families group seeks Rumsfeld meeting
By Karen Jowers
Staff writer
A national organization of about 3,000 people with family members or loved ones in the military has asked for a meeting with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to speak their minds about the war in Iraq.
Representatives of the group Military Families Speak Out will deliver a petition to Rumsfeld and Congress calling for an end to the ?backdoor draft? and for all troops to be brought home now.
Examples of this ?backdoor draft,? they say, are troop extensions, stop-loss orders, involuntary recalls and multiple deployments to Iraq.
?As Secretary of Defense, it is not only your job but your moral duty to hear what they have to say and to answer questions that they have,? wrote Nancy Lessin and Charley Richardson, co-founders of Military Families Speak Out, in the Oct. 30 letter to Rumsfeld in which they ask for a Nov. 9 meeting.
The group says it will exhibit flags and photographs on the National Mall in Washington on Veterans Day in honor of the American troops and Iraqi men, women and children who have died in the war.
The group has been vocal in its opposition to the war, testifying before Congress, and holding a vigil on Capitol Hill to make its views known to lawmakers and others and marching from Walter Reed Army Medical Center to the White House.
Among those expected to come to Washington are some family members of troops in the 172nd Stryker Brigade and the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division; the Marine Corps Individual Ready Reserve at risk for recall; those serving multiple deployments; National Guard families; and others.
Along with the letter to Rumsfeld, some family members have sent statements, including Rich Moniak of Juneau, Alaska, whose son Michael is in the 172nd. Members of that brigade were told in late July that their combat tours were being extended in Iraq, just days before they were due to return home.
?They are still in Baghdad, and we at home cannot trust the Pentagon to bring them home at the end of this extension,? Moniak said. ?Instead, we face each and every day fearing that unwanted knock on the door or a late night phone call. The redeployment is a symptom of the larger failures of this war and occupation.?
Facebook
Twitter