Oracle Online

Regardless of how you show your support, it is all appreciated and loved by the men and women serving in our military. My brother, veteran Kyle Kjersten, tells me that it is always nice to get letters and care packages from family and friends because it breaks up monotony and lets them know they are loved and will never be forgotten.

Lueth states that the Mar. 19 anniversary of the start of the war has arrived and we will continue to bomb, shoot, arrest, torture, kill people and destroy Iraq’s infrastructure. Instead of thinking about all of the bad things that have happened in the past three years, I want to think about all of the good things that have happened and are continuing to happen. In talking with my brother, I am told to forget about what you hear and see on the news because you are only seeing what the media wants you to see. He says, “When you hear about a bombing that killed two Americans, you don’t hear about the two new schools that opened the same day.” Hospitals are also opening to treat minor injuries occurring in the Iraqi home through day-to-day living rather than the war. This veteran says the Iraqis are happy that the Americans are there, and now Iraqi people just want to get on with their lives.

After doing some research, I have found some interesting facts. In the span of two-and-a-half years, more than 30,000 teachers were trained, over 8 million textbooks were distributed, irrigation infrastructures were rebuilt to help more than 400,000 rural Iraqis, and drinking water was improved for more than 3 million people. Also, over 30,000 new Iraqi businesses have been registered since liberation. Where is the bad in that?

As Pastor Bill Barnwell from Flushing, Michigan puts it, it ultimately boils down to how one defines “support.” “If by ‘support’ you mean to keep them in harm’s way, forever fighting battles where they never needed to be in the first place, then I guess no, no anti-war person can ‘support the troops.’ But if by ‘support’ you mean to actually care about the lives of these men and women, to desire that they get out of harm’s way, to want them back with their families, and to demand that they actually be used for national defense and not for politicians’ imperialistic impulses, then yes, we can and do support them just fine.” Opposing the war should not make you stop supporting the troops. The soldiers are our family and friends, and they are doing their job to the best of their ability. They have no more power to stop the war than we do.

--Peggy Kjersten
CLA ’09