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By Diana Carlson-Sherbo and Paul Sherbo, Lakewood

It has to be the ultimate in whining.

In a nation at war (whether most know it or not), it seems that one more thing people can complain about is that our leaders are not asking us to sacrifice.

In an interview with The Indianapolis Star earlier this year, historian and filmmaker Ken Burns complained, “We have a separate military class that suffers its losses ... we’re asked to sacrifice not anything — we’re told after Sept. 11 to go shopping. How insulting is that?”

Let’s get this straight: Since our leadership hasn’t asked him to sacrifice, Burns is just appalled and insulted, and is perhaps even at a loss as to what to do.

Well, Ken, heal thyself. If you really want to sacrifice, do it. Support the troops.

We don’t mean everyone should just put the yellow ribbon decals on his or her car and let it stop there. Nor do we mean write your congressman urging Congress to (take your choice) stay in Iraq, get out of Iraq, invade Iran, invade Saudi Arabia.

Magnetic ribbons and letters to Congress may be worthwhile activities, but they are hardly enough.

The troops and their families don’t really feel that kind of support, if you can even call it that. They might agree or disagree with your politics, but they do understand concrete actions.

Cases in point:

A small business owner writes to FSB magazine to say that “one of my best employees ... shipped out to Iraq about a year and a half ago. ... Now he is home, and he wants his old job back, even though because of a spinal injury he isn’t physically able to do the work he did before: installing boilers. How do I handle this?” (In other words, I support the troops, but why should this hurt me?)

A woman at home while her husband serves is snowed in and asks a neighbor with teenagers for help shoveling. The neighbor declines.

The Federal Times reports (in its Sept. 10 edition) that even federal agencies appear to bypass veterans’ legal preferences in hiring.

And here are some people for whom action was more important than words:
Several Girl Scout troops selling cookies have sought extra donations to send boxes of cookies to service members overseas.

A Disabled American Veterans chapter in Lakewood gathered and donated clothing and personal care items for the wounded at the military hopsital in Baghdad.

Some companies, large and small, have gone beyond what the law requires in terms of support for reservists and have continued to fully pay their mobilized employees and maintained their family’s health-care coverage.

A few churches have solicited donated items to send to church members deployed overseas.
Now here’s a big one: Celebrities such as John Elway and Robin Williams have visited the troops in Iraq. Now we don’t know how either of them feel about the war, but we do know they are rich and famous. They don’t have to go to Iraq. They don’t have to do anything. But they did.

You, too, can assist in any number of ways: Help organizations offering ways to collect and send gifts or cards to the troops. Offer to help Reserve and National Guard spouses with ride-sharing. Shovel walks. Rake leaves. Mow lawns. Offer to make dinner. Drive. Visit a veterans nursing home. In any case, to really support the troops you have to do something more than put a magnetic ribbon on your car or write letters. Put some sweat into it.

We know there are many who believe the best way to support the troops is to agitate to bring them home immediately. If that is your political view, then go ahead and agitate. We need vigorous and focused public debate. But to really support the troops, do more — invest your time, your money and your sweat.

Lakewood couple Diana Carlson-Sherbo and Paul Sherbo endured Paul’s deployment in June 2004 to serve as the Fifth Fleet’s representative to coalition forces in Iraq. He returned home in April 2005.

READER COMMENTS

I agree with Diana Carlson-Sherbo. If one wants to "sacrifice," why not help the vets and their families? Where are the anti-war people when it comes time to support a scholarship for the child of a soldier who died in battle, giving everything we could ask of him for his country. Why do liberals accuse the right of every sin and then keep their wallets closed when it is time actually to support our troops by helping their kids? Liberals have only one playbook: Hate Bush, Hate the Military, Hate America, and Lust for Defeat. They attack Limbaugh so that if, during the next election, they are accused of betraying their country, they can point to Mr. Ultra Republican Limbaugh as calling our troops in Iraq "phony soldiers"--even though he never said it! They attribute a culture of "corruption" to Republicans following one of the most corrupt and worthless administrations in American history. Want more pardons? If Americans go insane and elect Hillary, maybe she can pardon Bill.

I support the Bush cannon fodder by paying my taxes and by praying for their safety and their hasty retreat from an undeclared war that Alan Greenspan has written is "all about oil." That makes all those big SUVs with the yellow ribbons on them all the more sadly ironic. I also pray that our government will give the thousands of disabled veterans full support for the rest of their lives. Go ahead and bake cookies and take them to the VA hospital if that makes you feel better. I'd feel better with an across-the-board, fairly enforced gasoline rationing system.

Ken Burns is right. America's poor and working class families are supplying the targets/sitting-ducks and funds for Iraq-NAM. It still blows my mind Americans allowed a posse of Vietnam War draft-dodgers (Bush, Lott, Frist, and lard-a$$es Cheney/Hastert), to start this war. For the past 60 years, our wealthiest families have been great at starting wars, however, when the fighting started, their "blood and treasure" headed for the shopping malls, Tampa Bay, Palo Alto, college, ski-slopes, etc.

I served in the USN for 23 years in 3 nuclear powered submarines, 4 surface combat ships, and 3 deployments to Vietnam. The only celebrity's kid I ever met in uniform, was Admiral Chester Nimitz's (WWII hero) grandson. For the past 60 years, black men like have been pimped and exploited to properly man the "all-volunteer" armed forces. The nation steathly did this by intentionally burdening blacks with a traditional unemployment rate, that was twice that of whites.

I proudly join US Rep. Murtha (USMC Vietnam War hero), I wouldn't serve in today's armed forces with these guys and their draft-deferments". Disabled military veterans across all racial lines, are being robbed of their federal disability, job, and contracting benefits, by corrupt politicians and corporate CEO's. Xcel Energy's Richard Kelly, Mayor JLoop, Chips Barry (draft-dodgers), Ritter, Lockheed-Martin, CH2M Hill, are simply the worst.

Vietnam vets sometimes, eat their young. Cal Marsella and Phil Washington shafts black vets. Skaggs does the same. Hank Brown even engaged in "Swiftizing" Ward Churchill for Owens (draft dodger and whoremonger). Colorado's 400K vets are being screwed, because J. Salazar is the only congressional rep, who has ever served in uniform.

James J. Tenant
Lt. Commander, LDO, USN, Ret.

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