President Obama's Letters of Condolence to Families of the Fallen

Shortly after President Obama took office earlier this year, we found out that he had taken a different tact in writing condolence letters to families of the fallen from Iraq & Afghanistan. President Barack Obama has asked staffers to gather details about troops killed in overseas operations so he can personalize condolence letters to their families, according to a report in the Washington Times this week.  If Bush personally signed the letters (my own condolence letter from Bush appears to have been signed by an auto-pen), Bush's letters included nothing personal to make families feel as if their loss had been personally acknowledged by their loved one's Commander in Chief. Obama's approach to writing letters of condolence was a nice change.

When President Obama spoke at West Point about his new Afghanistan strategy called A New Way Forward, he said as President, I have signed a letter of condolence to the family of each American who gives their life in these wars.  It's too bad that isn't true.

We learned recently that the White House has an unwritten policy of not sending letters of condolence to the families of troops who took their own lives.  This is a harsh reality to families whose loved ones lives were lost from the invisible wounds of war.  This policy is not new to the Obama administration and neither was the ban on media coverage at Dover AFB, as soldiers returned in flag covered caskets. Shortly after President Obama took office, he lifted the media ban.  Obama should change this shameful White House policy that cruelly refuses to acknowledge the families tragic loss while their loved one served their country.

Troops who kill themselves on the battlefront or after they return to the homefront are casualties of war as surely as those who die in the field of battle.  The Department of Defense is just coming around to acknowledging the terrible number of suicides as they ponder new policies to try to deal with this tragic consequence of war. While the military has yet to acknowledge the causes of these high number of suicides, it seems clear that 9 years of war and all of the physical and mental strains that exists in battle might be the first place to look.

The Las Vegas Sun wrote a fitting editorial about the family of Chancellor Keesling and their pursuit of receiving the "final honor", a letter of condolence from their son's Commander in Chief.

In November, the Army announced that 140 soliders had committed suicide this year, equaling the record number of Army suicides recorded for 2008. We are reminded of what then-Army Secretary Pete Geren said last year: “Army leaders are fully aware that repeated deployments have led to increased distress and anxiety for both soldiers and their families.” 

The Army now tells soldiers that mental illness is not a condition of which they should be ashamed, and that seeking help will not stigmatize them. But that might be hard for them to believe when the families of their fellow soldiers who committed suicide do not receive letters of condolence from the president.

The president should send condolence letters to all casualties of war, no matter what the cause.  We owe our troops this final honor.

Bad Plan for Afghanistan

I am having deja' vu all over again and I don't mean that in a good way. I don't feel good about this new surge in Afghanistan.  President Obama (or fill-in-the-president) announces 30,000 (or fill-in-the-number) troops to be sent to Afghanistan (or fill-in-the-country)  with a goal of withdrawing forces in 2011(or fill-in the date).  We've heard it before.

President Obama appeared at West Point to give his speech this evening.  It seemed different than when former president Bush spoke surrounded by members of the US military wrapping himself in the flag to portray himself as one of the troops and not as their leader.  Tonight, the Commander in Chief told the cadets "I owe you a mission that is clearly defined and worthy of your service". I wonder how many of those cadets, will return home in a flag covered casket from serving in Afghanistan.  Will Obama go to Dover AFB to witness the dignified transfer of their remains as they return to their final resting place?

Obama tells us that General McChrystal  finds condition in Afghanistan "more serious than he anticipated" and McChrystal's escalation is the path our new President has chosen.  What about Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry's and other's serious reservations about deploying more troops to Afghanistan in the face of widespread corruption in Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government?

This Afghanistan strategy is not a "New Way Forward" as the White House tells us.  This strategy is rolling back 9 years ago and starting over with the strategy we should have had in 2001- remember back in December 2001 when Bush spoke of  bin Laden's capture and said he doesn't care how the suspect is brought to justice. "I don't care, dead or alive — either way," Bush said. "It doesn't matter to me."  Apparently nothing in Afghanistan mattered to Bush.  The U.S.squandered any opportunity to be successful in the pursuit of bin Laden and in fighting al Qaeda/ the Taliban in 2003, when the Bush administration took their eye of the ball and moved their little green army men over to Iraq.  Troops in Afghanistan have carried a terrible burden of being the red-headed step child when they were abandoned, with the lack of troops to accomplish the original mission of capturing Osama bin Laden. While we have a new administration, I am not convinced that we haven't lost our opportunity for a military success in Afghanistan.

I believe that President Obama when he said I do not make this decision lightly.  I opposed the war in Iraq precisely because I believe that we must exercise restraint in the use of military force, and always consider the long-term consequences of our actions.  We have been at war now for eight years, at enormous cost in lives and resources.  Years of debate over Iraq and terrorism have left our unity on national security issues in tatters, and created a highly polarized and partisan backdrop for this effort.  I just believe that he made the wrong decision.

Our country has been at war for 9 years in Afghanistan or Iraq or both. My mind was not changed by Obama's speech describing his new strategy. I only have one question- How many more?  How many more flag covered caskets?  How many broken families; how many children who will endure much of their childhood without one parent or the other? How many new Gold Star families? How many more billions of dollars should be spent? How many needless deaths to support a corrupt, dysfunctional government? How many more wounded veterans and their families will go without care or without sufficient care when they return?  How many multiple deployments must our military serve while so many Americans sit on the sidelines with no skin in the game?

HOW MANY MORE?

Liz Cheney's version of President Obama's trip to Dover

When I heard that Liz Cheney had a problem with President Obama's recent trip to Dover AFB to honor the 18 fallen soldiers and DEA employees as they made their final return home, I was insulted and disgusted that she felt she had an opinion to offer on the subject. Her opinion doesn't matter now and unless and until a loved one of Liz Cheney's is killed or wounded while serving their country, it never will and she should just keep her mouth shut.

Liz Cheney, daughter of former vice-president Dick Cheney, he of 5 deferrments to the draft during Viet Nam because he had other "priorities", doesn't get a vote on this one.  As a Gold Star mother who lost my only child in Iraq in 2004,  I don't need to be patronized by her platitudes of how a president should pay tribute to our fallen soldiers. 

The Huffington Post posted an article about Liz Cheney's Fox interview with John Gibson: I think that clearly it is very important for our Commander in Chief whenever he can in whatever way possible to pay tribute to our fallen soldiers, our military folks but I think that what President Bush used to do is do it without the cameras. And I don't understand sort of showing up with the White House Press Pool with photographers and asking family members if you can take pictures. That's really hard for me to get my head around...It was a surprising way for the president to choose to do this."

See Liz, when you start thinking, that's when things start going south for you. Never one to let facts get in the way, she covers herself by saying "I think that what President Bush used to do is do it without the cameras".  The fact is President Bush never went to Dover, and he never went to Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery to walk among the white stones that mark the graves of the nearly 800 members of the military who were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, his and Dick Cheney's wars of choice.    Bush said the appropriate way to show his respect for war's cost was to meet with grieving military families in private.  Unfortunately or fortunately, very few families met with former President Bush if they did not share his politics and support his war policy. Bush chose to meet with families who were pre-screened to meet the administration's criteria.  When insulated that way, Bush could say that families told  him to 'stay the course" and to not let their loved one's death be in vain.  I would have told him to bring the troops home and to take care of them when they got home; he did neither.

Bush or Cheney would never have been photographed honoring the US dead because they continued the longstanding policy of banning media coverage at Dover AFB, the mortuary for the Department of Defense.  Just because we never saw photographs, doesn't mean it happened.  The media ban policy was a political move by the Bush administration to shield the country from the images of war.  The Pentagon did not feel that US population could pass the Dover Test.   Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Hugh Shelton, asked whether "the American public (is) prepared for the sight of our most precious resource coming home in flag-draped caskets.".  In 1997 combat veteran and former Senator John Glenn describedthe Dover Test this way "It's easy to see the flags flying and the people go off to war, and the bands play and the flags fly.  And it's not quite so easy when the flag is draped over a coffin coming home back through Dover, Delaware".   President Obama, the Commander in Chief, took the Dover test on October 28; something neither Bush or Cheney ever did.

Kudos to Lawrence O'Donnell who, on Countdown on MSNBC,  took exception to Liz Cheney's response with this message directly to her:

"Liz, don't let your dad do this to you. Don't let him parade you on to the stage to defend the indefensible. Let him suffer the full weight of the shame that we know he must feel when he watches Barack Obama do what he never had the decency to do."

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/31/lawrence-odonnell-slams-l_n_340841.html

Mark Shields at www.delmarva.com wrote a wonderful opinion piece called "Obama earns nation's thanks through 'Dover test'"  

The scene at Dover is no ordinary picture. No, Dover is truly the portrait of sacrifice and of human loss. Statistics do not bleed. Real sons and real fathers -- and, yes, real sisters -- bleed. And they die. However any of us might feel about the wisdom of the decision to go to war or of how that war has been waged, all of us need to appreciate -- and to share -- the grief and pain of the human cost of war. 

However Liz Cheney might feel about the wisdom of the decision to go to war, she has not earned the right to call out Obama on how he chooses to honor the fallen. Her words are irrelevant and we should treat them so.

President Obama's trip to Dover AFB

The photos and videos from the solemn dignified transfer at Dover AFB with President Obama took my breath away.

Unlike many people who think it was a photo op staged by the White House for whatever reason they came up with, I appreciated that our President made that midnight trip to Dover, the mortuary for the US military, and paid his respects to these young men, returning from Afghanistan and their families.

Although only one soldier's family agreed to have his transfer photographed by the media, I'm pretty sure that the families could have cared less if the President or Osama bin Laden was on the tarmac as they saw their loved ones return in a flag covered casket. That moment when you see your loved one covered with the American flag being removed from the belly of a plane is one of the most gut wrenching sites you will ever experience. When my son's body was removed from the plane at San Francisco airport from that US Airways jet that carried him home to California from Dover, I could have crawled inside with Ken's body and never come out. The reality that my son was in that casket and would not live the rest of his life that we had dreamed for him was the most physical and emotional pain I have ever experienced. It was the worst day of my life.

I was not given the opportunity to witness Ken's "dignified transfer" at Dover AFB in Deleware; in fact, we were discouraged from and not allowed to attend his homecoming. That was the policy of the former Bush administration, presumably reinforced by Vice President Dick Cheney. In 1989 Dick Cheney, the Assistant Secretary of Defense during the George H.W. Bush administration implemented the "no media" at Dover policy that stayed in effect for 18 years.

Not only was I not invited or welcome at Dover back in 2004, I was not allowed a photograph of Ken's body returning to Dover. When I asked for that photograph on the day I was told of Ken's death, the Army told me I could not have that photograph because it was against Department of  Defense policy and it was for the privacy of the families.

Lifting the media ban was something that I had been vocal about for nearly 5 years and I will always be grateful that during the first few months of his presidency, Obama changed the media policy at Dover.  I know that some Gold Star families (we, who have lost a loved one who was serving in the military) did not agree with the lifting of the ban, but for those of us who would have wanted to witness this return home and share that images with our country, President Obama gave those families who came after us an opportunity that we did not have.  

Nearly two thirds of families have agreed to have their loved one's return by photographed by the media, and even more have agreed to have photographs taken by the Pentagon.  The change in policy did not result in any dire change of behavior by the media or political parties as some had suggested would happen.  The photographs have shown the dignity and respect afforded to these members of the military on their final journey home.

MSNBC reported the President's comments after his trip to Dover : "It was a sobering reminder of the extraordinary sacrifices that our young men and women in uniform are engaging in every single day, not only our troops but their families as well," Obama said from the White House, reflecting briefly on his surprise middle-of-the-night trip to Dover Air Force Base to observe the return of the fallen Americans to the United States.Speaking softly and somewhat haltingly, Obama said losses such as these are "something that I think about each and every day."

I believe that President Obama does think about the war losses every day.  On Memorial Day earlier this year, as a member of American Gold Star Mothers, I was among sevveral groups of veteran's service organizations who attended a breakfast with the President at the White House. President Obama sat with 6 Gold Star Mothers and 2 Gold Star fathers.  I was told it was the first time that an administration invited veteran's service organizations to the White House on Memorial Day.  In 2008, after former president Bush participated in the wreath laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown at Arlington National Cemetery, he returned to the White House to honor the NCAA basketball champions.  I still wonder if that ceremony might have waited a day to allow the president to continue to honor the military, but we were never a priority in his day or his administration.

In February 2009, Washington Times reporter, Christina Bellatoni wrote about President Obama's approach to the solemn task of writing offical letters of condolence to families of the fallen from Iraq & Afghanistan.

In his first few weeks in office, sometime between celebratory bill signings and phone calls from foreign leaders, President Obama sat in the Oval Office for the most somber task of his presidency - penning letters to families of troops killed in combat.
"This was real, it was personal, it was so important to us," said Thya Merz, whose son Marine Lance Cpl. Julian Brennan was killed Jan. 24 in Afghanistan.
The letter was signed "Barack," Ms. Merz told The Washington Times.
"Not 'president,' just his first name, and it just felt like, OK, my son has been acknowledged," she said.
Mr. Obama personalizes each letter, asking staffers to gather details about the service member, such as their hometown and where they were stationed, a White House aide said. The letters are sent to parents and spouses, and sometimes children of the fallen troops.
The president writes the notes by hand, then the letters are typed before he adds his signature.
Mr. Obama wrote the first few letters for troops who died in Iraq and Afghanistan while George W. Bush was president, and has written at least a dozen more since taking office.
The president told NBC News that the duty falls to him, though he did not initiate the wars and opposed the invasion of Iraq. In those moments of signing the letters, he said, "you realize every decision you make counts."

I  believe President Obama thinks about the fighting men and women of the military in a way that George Bush never did.  I hope that he keeps these sacrifices in mind when he makes his decision on whether the number of troops in Afghanistan will be increased or decreased.  My vote is to bring them home NOW!