A Tough Blow to the Families of the 94th Sends a Message

A Tough Blow to the Families of the 94^th Sends a Message

By Dean Dexter

The families of the U.S. Army Reserve’s 94^th Military Police Company, based in Londonderry, are angry. In fact, they’re fighting mad. And that does not bode well for George Bush, the Republican Party, or for the country. These people represent the heart and soul of our country’s military culture. There must be hundreds, maybe thousands like them across America.

This year’s Easter Sunday, which was also the day before the last day of the Jewish Passover, was going to be more than a holiday for these families. It was to be a festive time of celebrating the return of loved ones, finally safe after 17 months of fighting in Iraq. Their time was up.

But the night before the New Hampshire unit was to leave Kuwait, where it had been stationed pending departure for home, word came from Central Command that the flight was on hold. Two days later that hold status was changed to extended duty back to the war zone, for as much as 90 days, maybe more. They are among 20, 000 troops – hey, do we dare say it? – ‘drafted’ back into service. Each one of them have families and friends back home.

One can only imagine the stiff upper lips, the sadness around dinner tables this Easter and Passover where these New Hampshire people with loved ones in harms way gathered. Sounds so formal, the words, ‘in harms way.’ Sobering. Poetic.

That Sunday, there was a concern in the air, unspoken, at the old white church I sometimes go to, where there is a tradition in the middle of the service where someone always prays for the troops at war, particularly those in the congregation who are in Iraq, and for the president and other leaders. A simple, sincere prayer.

But the thought occurs to me every time I hear it that one cannot take this kind of innocence for granted, such purity of support and loyalty cannot be received lightly by the Powers That Be in this country. It is not right to mess with faithful, patriotic people who are giving the very best they have for their country – the lives of their own husbands, wives, and children. Noble cause, or not.

I have seen in recent days that some people who support President Bush get a little snippy when the ‘V’ word comes up in relation to this war in Iraq.

You can’t compare this thing with Vietnam, they gasp.

It hits a nerve. They are afraid this war will turn the tables on George Bush’s chances for another term, and they have a point.

There is a shudder among some who cannot bear to think of a John Kerry Presidency. Think of the activist judges he’d appoint, they say? What of the War against Terrorism, they ask? And how about his U.N. One-Worlder pals who would decimate American sovereignty, they cry?

Indeed. The world is full of pitfalls and there is much to shudder about.

But history is not lost on this generation, and it will not be lost on the next one because there were lessons gained in a hot steaming jungle a few decades ago that were too hard learned and are still too fresh.

People in this country are not stupid. They will not put up with four or five years – or four or five months – of fumbling, miscalculation, false hope, and double-speak from political hacks and bureaucrats in the White House or Pentagon. People will not sit back as ever rising numbers of our men and women get themselves maimed and lost on a far-off battle field day after day, week after week, month after month for a no-win cause, with no plausible end in sight. This we have seen before.

Better the current Commander-in-Chief, and whoever is in the White House next January, gets that message now rather than later. And it looks like the families and friends of the 94^th are beginning to get that message out.

Originally published in the The Citizen (Laconia, New Hampshire) April 16 ,2004: Families of the N.H. 94th Send Message

Poor Man's Fight -- Phoebe Kosman

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