LTTE from Guardsman who quit rather than go to Iraq again

[n2doc]

This is in response to "The challenge of military leaders in Iraq" (Voice of the people, March 11), by David L. Grange, President and CEO, McCormick Tribune Foundation.

On the morning of Sept. 12, 2001, I was prepared to go to war. America had been ruthlessly attacked by Al Qaeda. Like most all Americans, I was shocked and furious.

I was also a member of the Illinois National Guard.

The National Guard would likely be involved in the response to this brazen attack on our homeland. That's what the National Guard was for.

But my call to go to that war never came. Instead George W. Bush and his administration began preparing for a war in Iraq.

Their destiny had been handed to them: being the world leaders in the war against terror, which to me was the defeat of the Islamic extremists who attacked us. But instead our American "leaders" took us down a different path to a different war, and insulted our allies and anyone who wouldn't jump on their bandwagon in the process.

The results of their actions are clearly evident today. The U.S., Iraq and the world are not safer places.

In December of 2003, my unit received a mobilization for the war in Iraq, where I spent nearly a year. The total time away from my family was around 14 months, including the train-up.

Life in the National Guard is now very different. Today's National Guard hopes to keep troops at home for four years between one-year deployments, and in many cases won't be able to do that. That's quite a burden for a reserve force of part-time soldiers. And for their employers. In his letter to the editor, Grange asked, "How can they stand on an airfield and allow their unit to fly off to war while they stay home?"

Unfortunately I'll find out. I've recently resigned. Officially it was a retirement. I had to make a painful decision whether to stay with my unit for another deployment to Iraq, or quit.

My 27-year career in the Guard has been very rewarding. I will cherish all my memories. I am a helicopter pilot who has flown along the Illinois and Mississippi rivers during the flood of 1993, flew on exercises in Panama, Honduras, El Salvador and Iceland, and recently worked for a month along Arizona's southern border assisting the U.S. Border Patrol. Even while in Iraq, I had memorable experiences.

When that plane takes off to go back to Iraq and many friends are on it, but I am not, it will be a very uneasy feeling for me.

My heart will be with them.

But I find it more important to be one more of the many voices telling the Bush administration that enough is enough.

Dale Glowacki

Brookfield

http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/news_opinion_letters/2007/03/a_national_guar.html

[Hav]

1. .

Very well said.
We have long passed the point where enough is really enough.

[MrModerate]

2. My wife, a veteran of 18 years in the Guard . . .

Has ended up taking a softer way out. We've relocated several times since 2003, and she's been on "inactive" status for most of that time. She risks giving up the retirement benefits that almost-two-decades in the Guard earned her, but that risk pales beside the risk of being deployed in an idiotic, stupidly managed war dreamed up by bloodthirsty chickenhawks with delusions of empire.

Compared to the sacrifice of her fellow Guard members who have been sucked into the Iraq meat grinder, she considers her sacrifice to be trivial -- but just as needless.

[Benhurst]

3. Recommended

[shadowknows69]

4. K+R

We need more soldiers coming forward in the press about this.

[Bandit]

5. As an employer because of Bush* I will not hire National Guardsmen

I will deny ever saying it but the fact remains. It is not fair for my other employees or especially someone I have to hire to fill in for a year while so and so is off killing civilians for profit. I just won't do it...If it were just on weekends and two weeks a year it would be no problem but that is not the case any longer. I think the National Guard is a Godsend for the state when they are needed and that is what they are for. They are to defend the Nation from within from whatever it needs defending from like flooding or earthquake or ????? but not for fighting in some God forsaken place against Civilians. That is what the Army and Marines are for...IMO the Bush* Cabal has destroyed the National Guard and it's primary mission.