Moms speak out

A Spokane Valley Marine’s mother wants the nation to know there is more to patriotism than following the president down a dangerous path of pre-emptive war in Iraq without an exit strategy.

“We are an America of many people and they speak with many voices,” said Tricia Turner, whose son is stationed at Camp Pendleton, Calif., expecting to be deployed to Iraq soon.

Hers was one of several voices raised Monday at a roundtable at the Community Center in downtown Spokane against President Bush’s handling of the war. She was joined by three members of Military Moms with a Mission, mothers and wives of servicemen and women who are touring the country in support of John Kerry’s campaign for president.

“President Bush has hijacked the word ‘terror’ and turned it into war in Iraq,” said Nita Martin of Philadelphia, a self-described Republican for Kerry whose son is a Marine officer in Iraq. Another son, in the Marine Corps Reserves, just returned from Iraq.

An audience of about 30 people, mostly women with relatives in the military, joined in the conversation sponsored by the Democratic group, Women for Kerry.

State Sen. Lisa Brown, who moderated the afternoon forum, summed up their complaints:

•Bush misled the nation into going to war over weapons of mass destruction that did not exist.

•Many National Guard and Reserve troops were deployed to Iraq without necessary equipment, including body armor.

•The Defense Department’s “stop loss” order forcing some members of the country’s volunteer armed forces to remain in service beyond their contractually agreed-upon term amounts to a “backdoor draft.”

•The Bush administration’s funding of the Department of Veterans Affairs has not kept pace with the increased demand for its services.

Reached for a comment in Bellevue, Wash., the chairman of the Washington Republican Party said Military Moms with a Mission are touring the country trying to create the impression that the troops are dissatisfied with their president.

“I respect their opinions, but they are not the majority,” Chris Vance said.

“Every poll shows that the overwhelming majority of veterans and active duty military support President Bush.”

But Lisa Leitz, whose husband is training to be a naval aviator at Pensacola Naval Air Station, said many of those who backed Bush in recent polls published in military newspapers were afraid to declare for Kerry.

She said the one-in-four support for Kerry shows Bush’s military support is eroding.

“I think a lot more people in the military are going to go Democratic than what they say in the survey,” said Leitz, who lives on the military base at Whiting Field outside Pensacola.

Military Moms came to Spokane armed with the recent release of a letter by Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the former top U.S. commander in Iraq, who wrote in 2003 that he lacked spare parts and equipment vital to combat operations.

“I cannot sustain readiness without Army-level intervention,” Sanchez said in a document obtained by The Washington Post.

Martin said Sanchez knew a year ago that U.S. forces didn’t have the equipment needed, but the public was not told because it “raises a lot of questions Bush doesn’t want to answer.”

Leitz said she differs with the Washington, D.C.-based Military Families Speak Out, who advocate an immediate withdrawal from Iraq.

“We can’t afford to do that,” Leitz said.

She would like to see international support on the ground in Iraq, providing security and training an Iraqi security force.

“This is a global war on terrorism,” she said, and it is time the world was told that, as well as Americans.

She would also like to see more Iraqi participation in rebuilding Iraq’s infrastructure, “giving them control and a stake in what they’ve built.”

Leitz likes Kerry’s plan of increasing Special Forces’ role in the war on terrorism, something she said makes traditional military forces with a stake in preserving the status quo nervous.

“We have to be smart about going after nonstate combatants, and that is what Special Forces do best,” she said.

Turner said she has attended four Marine funerals in Washington state since the beginning of summer.

“When you have someone who is active duty, you are scared all the time,” she said. “I don’t want to go to another funeral.”